In today’s competitive global market

Microsoft has a long history of developing and delivering innovative software and services for businesses and individuals. Designed to meet your unique business needs, our software-plus-services vision brings together the best of rich on-premise applications and flexible online services to give you ready access to the latest messaging and collaboration tools – without costly deployment and time-consuming maintenance. Microsoft Online Services reliably delivers 99.9 percent scheduled uptime and carries a financially backed service level agreement.

Let Our IT Resources Work for You

Microsoft Online Services gives your business the powerful productivity capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting —all hosted online and all up and running quickly and easily without the upfront costs of an on-premise deployment. The suite of productivity tools enables your workers to communicate and collaborate effectively, while enabling your IT team to focus on more business-critical tasks. And with services hosted by Microsoft, you can have peace of mind knowing that experts are managing your IT and that your services will be available when you need them.

Features and Benefits

Microsoft Online Services makes it easy for you to leverage and rapidly deploy familiar Microsoft server products as flexible services.  These hosted services—the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite—include the following:

Provide employees access to e-mail, calendar, and contacts from virtually anywhere, at anytime, on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices—while helping to protect against malware and spam. Exchange Online can be rapidly deployed, flexibly expanded, and is designed to be securely administered using a powerful yet easy-to-use Web-based console.

Share documents, contacts, calendars, and tasks in a single location. Based on Microsoft Office SharePoint_® Server 2007, SharePoint Online delivers rich collaboration capabilities that enable team members to flexibly and efficiently collaborate, find organizational resources, search your intranet site, and manage content and workflow.

Connect with colleagues and customers through real-time meetings, training sessions, and events using only a PC with an Internet connection. Hosted Web conferencing services from Microsoft Office Live Meeting give your employees the power to collaborate wherever they are, to set up project meetings, brainstorm ideas, and collaborate on whiteboards without the cost and hassle of travel!

Enable users to find and rapidly connect with the right person from the applications they use most. Office Communications Online provides streamlined access to rich presence and instant messaging capabilities that are centrally managed by IT and work seamlessly with a range of Microsoft Office system programs.

How It Works

Each Microsoft data center, located strategically throughout the world, houses a highly reliable complex of equipment that provides seamless connectivity to the Microsoft Online suite of services. This global network of geo-redundant data centers provides around the clock access to your business-critical collaboration services, and helps keep your data safe.

 With Microsoft Online Services, your IT staff retains control over the services offered to your end users. Microsoft Online Services work seamlessly with Microsoft Active Directory, so you can continue to manage user policies centrally and control which services are available via your existing users. A single administrative panel—with consoles for provisioning, usage, monitoring, and support—enables simple and centralized management. And your users can enjoy the convenience of a single sign-on to access all their hosted services.

Visit www.microsoft.com/online today for your free 30 day trial, or contact us for more information.

Start putting our IT resources to work for you!

XenDesktop 4 is a comprehensive desktop virtualization solution that delivers a complete Windows desktop experience as an on-demand service to any user, anywhere, making virtual desktops a mainstream reality for hundreds of millions of corporate employees for the first time ever. Unlike first-generation VDI-only solutions that were applicable only to a narrow set of users, XenDesktop 4 with its new FlexCast™ delivery technology is the first product in the industry to support every major desktop virtualization model in a single, integrated solution – a breakthrough that improves ROI, simplifies management and extends the benefits of virtualization to every employee in the enterprise. XenDesktop 4 further simplifies desktop computing by integrating all the functionality of Citrix XenApp™, enabling customers to deliver on-demand applications as a seamless part of their overall desktop strategy. XenDesktop’s award-winning HDX™ technology also ensures every user receives a high-definition experience. By using up to 90 percent less bandwidth than competing solutions, XenDesktop with HDX is the only solution to deliver a high-definition experience over WAN connections, and can support up to three times more users on the same LAN.

“InfoWorld Technology of the Year award winners are not just the best products in their class, but the products that are leading the way in the technology categories that businesses and IT professionals should care most about,” InfoWorld Test Center Executive Editor Doug Dineley said. “These are the products that are changing the way businesses operate and how people work.”

“We are honored that InfoWorld Test Center editor and reviewers recognized XenDesktop 4 as an InfoWorld 2010 Technology of the Year Award winner. It’s a testament not only to the strength of our innovative solution, but to the growing mainstream adoption of desktop virtualization overall,” said Raj Dhingra, group vice president and general manager, XenDesktop product group at Citrix Systems. “XenDesktop 4 has proven to be a market-leading and award-winning desktop virtualization product and to share this win with other top-notch solutions, like Intel’s Nehalem processor, Microsoft Windows 7 and Apple’s iPhone OS and AppStore is a true achievement.”

Read the entire article at Citrix.

Citrix Announces Project “Open Door” for Customers Switching from VMware to XenServer or Hyper-V

20 Percent of Fortune 500 Now Report Using Citrix XenServer as Company Offers Additional Tools to Help Customers Switch

BOSTON » 10/14/2009 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS) today announced a new program called Project “Open Door” that offers advanced virtualization management along with free support, training and conversion tools to customers switching servers from VMware ESX or vSphere to Citrix® XenServer™ or Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 Hyper-V™. With more than 70 percent of enterprise customers now using multiple hypervisors in production(1), demand for the Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer virtualization platforms continues to grow. In fact, over the past 30 days the number of large enterprise customers who have activated XenServer for production use has more than doubled, and now represents 20 percent of the Global Fortune 500.  Project Open Door makes it easier for customers who want to switch out existing VMware servers for the rapidly growing XenServer and Hyper-V platforms, offering advanced virtualization management for both environments, along with free support, training and conversion tools to make the transition as simple as possible.

“XenServer and Hyper-V are clearly the fastest growing virtualization platforms in the industry today, each appealing to a different set of users,” said N. Louis Shipley, group vice president and general manager, XenServer Product Group at Citrix. “With the price of virtualization continuing to rise from other vendors, more and more enterprise customers are switching a portion of their production servers to the Citrix and Microsoft virtualization platforms. Project Open Door helps these customers achieve more agile datacenters by offering them advanced virtualization management through our Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Hyper-V solution, as well as assistance in making the transition smooth, easy and cost-effective. With more virtualization choices than ever, we encourage customers to shop around and make the right choice for their environment.”

Introducing Project Open Door
Project Open Door helps ensure customers looking to expand their datacenters with XenServer or Hyper-V have a smooth transition. Through March 2010, customers who switch existing VMware servers to XenServer or Hyper-V, and add Citrix Essentials™ for advanced virtualization management, will receive additional technical support, training, and conversion tools from Citrix at no cost.  
Citrix Essentials enhances the XenServer and Hyper-V platforms by adding powerful storage integration through Citrix® StorageLink™ technology, automated lab and stage management and dynamic workload balancing. This combination enables broad interoperability that makes it easier for customers to manage virtual machines across heterogeneous virtualization environments throughout the full application lifecycle, from lab and testing to production.

Customers Worldwide Moving to XenServer
With one in five enterprise customers now using XenServer(2), production deployments are growing rapidly across all industry segments. According to the Burton Group, using Citrix XenServer with Citrix Essentials meets 100 percent of the required features for enterprise production deployment. By switching servers from more expensive solutions to XenServer, customers have found that they not only get powerful, enterprise-class virtualization at a far lower cost, they are better equipped to future-proof their virtualization infrastructures for the coming wave of cloud computing. Customers who recently made the switch to XenServer include companies of all sizes, across multiple industries:

“The choice to go with Citrix came down to performance,” said Michael Gilbert, director, IT Divisional Services, Randstad Professionals, a leading global provider of professional employment services. “The 64-bit architecture simply outperformed anything else out there, and that had real world implications in terms of saving costs on additional hardware. Obviously, the price difference is nice, but it’s really the performance that matters. As we take XenServer deeper into the environment we are constantly finding new applications for the technology. For Randstad, leveraging virtualization for disaster recovery purposes is the next on our list.”

“In our effort to capture the promise of virtualization, we tested Citrix XenServer and have been very pleased with the results,” said Scott Richards, systems engineer, Zions Bank, a regional financial services leader with more than 500 offices across 10 US states. “Not only have we reduced our hardware footprint and server sprawl but we have also been able to obtain higher levels of application availability, all while meeting the needs of our end user customers. Without XenServer we would have had to revert to the days of underutilized and expensive physical infrastructure. For Zions Bank, it has been a win-win situation all the way around.”

“Citrix XenServer has been the best choice for helping us shrink our server footprint and reduce hardware and virtualization licensing costs,” said Ziad Sukkar, CIO, Asia Pacific Region, Sirva Relocation and affiliate Allied Pickfords, a global shipping provider with operations in more than 40 countries worldwide. “It was surprisingly simple to migrate using the Citrix supplied conversion tools, and we have already seen a huge reduction in overall costs, as well as increased stability and performance of our server virtualization platform.  In fact, we are planning to expand our implementation of XenServer so we can virtualize additional applications.” (see their video here that talks about why they made the switch).

“The Facilities Management Information Systems unit was the first on the UC Davis campus to host large-scale application deployment on the XenServer platform. When we took a step back and looked at our vision for IT, the decision to move to XenServer was really easy to make,” said Florencio Inzunza, network systems administrator, University of California, Davis. “Our ultimate goal is to provide maximum service levels with minimal administrative overhead, and the Citrix focus on delivery, as well as cost effective hosting via virtualization, made the decision very clear.”

“After doing in-depth comparisons of all the virtualization platforms out there, it became quite clear that XenServer provides the biggest bang for the buck,” said Steven Miller, IT manager, Guy M. Turner, a leading regional industrial equipment and transportation company based in North Carolina. “Getting everything we need at a fraction of the cost of many of the alternative solutions on the market just makes sense. It is clear to us that, for perhaps the first time, there is some stout competition to VMware.  That is good for the market.”

“For us, the choice to deploy XenServer is all about getting the most performance and scalability for our XenApp servers,” said Jon Garlock, systems manager, J.H. Cohn, one of the largest independent accounting and consulting firms in the United States. “We have seen a huge advantage to running XenApp on XenServer. So much so, that it was simply in our best economic interest to make the switch. By increasing the density and the performance for end users running applications in XenApp, we were easily able to justify the switch.”

“After running and testing both the leading virtualization solutions side by side, our organization standardized on XenServer and now have a host of IT production services running on XenServer,” said Paul Matthews, chief technology officer, OCHIN, Inc., a leader in the health information technology industry. “These include our HL7 Messaging, gateway and e-pharmacy solutions. For a health cooperative of our size and scope, messaging and prescription services are our life blood. So to host these mission critical services on a virtual platform we had to be 100 percent certain of the stability and reliability of the underlying technology. XenServer has exceeded our expectations on all fronts.”  

“In making virtualized servers a standard part of our IT infrastructure, we required a secure, reliable, flexible, feature rich and cost effective platform,” said Tom Norton, ICT development manager, Taunton School in the UK. “After careful comparison between XenServer and the VMware technology we had been using, we found XenServer offered all the features we needed, at a fraction of the price.  By decommissioning our VMware servers and replacing them with XenServer, we have not only lowered costs, but also gained capacity to support more users on each server and eased the management of the system.”

Program Details
The Project Open Door promotion will be effective worldwide from October 1 – March 31, 2010. Customers who decommission five or more VMware vSphere 4 or VI3 servers and replace them with XenServer or Hyper-V plus the Citrix Essentials solution, receive the following:  
• A free five incident support pack (5 by 8 hours) for every five servers converted
• A voucher for six hours of online training for every five servers converted
• Free migration tools for seamlessly transferring virtual machines from VMware to XenServer or Hyper-V

Please visit http://www.citrix.com/opendoor for more information.

Derived from the original article at Citrix.com.

“2010 will be a watershed year for desktop virtualization, ushering in a new era that will revolutionize the way we work, live and play,” said Mark Templeton, president and CEO, Citrix Systems. “25 years ago, the personal computer turned the world upside down, radically improving individual productivity and communications. That world is about to change again. People today need to work in entirely new ways, powered by the connectivity of the internet, an explosion of new devices, and the limitless promise of the web. And they need to do it without being confined to ordinary desktops that are locked to an office, a device, or a network. Desktop virtualization has the power to make all this possible. That revolution begins here, today. And it starts with the new XenDesktop.” (see video message from Mark Templeton)

Making Desktop Computing Fast, Simple and Flexible
By delivering desktops as an on-demand service to any device, XenDesktop 4 dramatically simplifies the world of desktop computing. On-boarding new employees goes from days to minutes. New branches can be opened in a fraction of the time. And employee moves, adds and changes become quick and easy. Combining secure central management with full device independence also allows companies to implement cost-saving “BYOC” (bring-your-own-computer) programs that give employees the freedom to purchase any laptop of their choice in lieu of standard-issue PCs owned and managed by IT.

Benefits for end users are equally profound. With XenDesktop 4, users are no longer tethered to a specific device. They simply use whatever PC, Mac, thin client, laptop or netbook is most convenient, and get instant, secure access to their full Windows desktop and everything on it. XenDesktop’s HDX™ technology ensures a rich, high-definition experience every time they log in, no matter where they are or what kind of virtual desktop technology is being used on the back end.

Extending Desktop Virtualization to Every User with FlexCast™
The centerpiece of XenDesktop 4 is its FlexCast™ delivery technology, a powerful new capability that gives customers the flexibility to deliver any type of virtual desktop, to any user, on any device – and to change this mix at any time. XenDesktop 4 with FlexCast allows customers to use any combination of the following virtual desktop technologies, all orchestrated from one, centrally-managed solution:

• For task workers sharing a similar set of applications, the most secure, cost-effective approach is a shared, server-based virtual desktop. This model gives each user a standardized, locked-down desktop ideally suited for jobs where user customization is not needed or desired. By supporting up to 500 users on a single server, this model offers a significant cost savings over any other virtual desktop technology. 
• For office workers who need more personalized desktops, the hosted VM-based model, commonly referred to as VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), is often the best approach. By running each user’s desktop in a dedicated virtual machine, this option combines the benefits of central management with full user personalization, and can generally support about 60-70 desktops per server. 
• For power users running high-end professional applications, blade PCs in the datacenter can also be an attractive option. This approach offers all the benefits of centralization, but ensures dedicated processing power for each user by hosting only one desktop per server. 
• XenDesktop 4 also supports a range of innovative client-side options, including the ability to stream desktops to each user’s device to run locally, while still managing the OS, apps and data centrally. This approach offers an easy, low-cost way for customers to get started with desktop virtualization by leveraging existing PC resources and keeping datacenter overhead to a minimum. It can also be ideal for government and university labs that use diskless PCs for maximum data security. 
• In some cases, the simplest option is to deliver virtual applications to a PC running a traditionally installed OS. By centralizing apps and delivering them as an on-demand service to existing desktops, this option offers many of the ROI and management benefits of a fully virtualized desktop with minimal setup costs, making it an ideal starting point for customers new to desktop virtualization. Because virtual apps can work offline as well, this option is also a popular choice for mobile users.

“Dell’s Flexible Computing vision aligns well with Citrix’s desktop virtualization strategy.  Citrix XenDesktop 4, as part of Dell’s Flexible Computing offering, gives our customers the flexibility to pick the best type of virtual desktop solution for their needs,” said Michael Dell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dell. “Given the upcoming Windows 7 refresh cycle, we’re expecting many of our customers to begin assessing desktop virtualization as the industry moves to anytime, anywhere desktop access.”

“CSC has enjoyed a robust history of offering clients the quality and innovation Citrix continuously brings to market, said Mike Laphen, CSC Chairman, President and CEO. By expanding the reach of desktop virtualization to every employee in the enterprise, XenDesktop 4 with its new FlexCast™ delivery technology will help CSC further deploy virtualized desktop services to meet the rapidly growing market demand.”

On-Demand Apps by XenApp™
Much of the cost and complexity of desktop management is a direct result of the applications running on each user’s unique desktop. Integrating all the capabilities of Citrix’s market-leading XenApp technology into XenDesktop 4 instantly improves the ROI of desktop virtualization by making application delivery a seamless part of the overall desktop management experience.  Now, IT can control data access, manage fewer desktop images, eliminate system conflicts, and reduce application regression testing. Adding, updating and removing apps is simple because users can leverage a self-service app store, enabling them to access applications instantly from anywhere.

Enhanced HDX™ User Experience
XenDesktop 4 also includes significant new features that improve power and capacity management, service monitoring, scalability, security and performance. Most important among these are enhancements to its high-definition HDX technology, ensuring that every user gets the best possible experience, regardless of which virtual desktop technology is at work on the back end. New HDX improvements in XenDesktop 4 include enhancements for multimedia content, real-time collaboration, USB peripherals and 3D graphics to assist in real-time collaboration among disperse design teams. In addition to improving user experience, these new HDX enhancements utilize up to 90 percent less bandwidth than alternative solutions (see separate press release issued today).

“In 2009, we saw many organizations doing pilots and departmental implementations of desktop virtualization and proving that the technology greatly simplifies desktop computing. Now, it’s time to see these pilots turned into enterprise-wide strategic initiatives. 2010 will be a critical year to demonstrate proof that desktop virtualization can become a mainstream strategic IT initiative,” said Matt Eastwood, group vice president, Enterprise Platform Research, IDC. “Key factors such as a PC refresh cycle with Windows 7 and the availability of improved technology, like XenDesktop 4, that enhances user experience and provides flexibility to deliver different types of virtual desktops will help drive desktop virtualization to the mainstream.”

Expanded Microsoft Partnership
XenDesktop 4 expands the company’s longtime partnership with Microsoft, helping customers drive an entirely new level of desktop efficiency by leveraging the latest enhancements in Microsoft platforms such as Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services and the Microsoft VDI Suites. XenDesktop 4 likewise builds on the latest performance and availability enhancements of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. Beginning with version 4, XenDesktop now ships with Hyper-V as well. The two companies are also working together to simplify the management of physical and virtual desktops and applications via the Microsoft System Center management platform, including plans to further integrate solutions like Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) into the Citrix XenDesktop experience (see “Citrix and Microsoft Expand Desktop Virtualization Partnership”). XenDesktop 4 also builds on the latest features of Microsoft Windows 7, making everyday tasks easier, and helping customers work the way they want. And with its new expanded functionality, XenDesktop 4 helps customers migrate to Windows 7 more quickly and seamlessly than ever before.

“Citrix XenDesktop 4 represents an important milestone for the industry and an ideal complement to Microsoft’s user-centric computing vision,” said Bob Muglia, president, Server and Tools Business, Microsoft Corp.  “Microsoft is working closely with Citrix to ensure users have on-demand access to the information they need when they need it, regardless of what device they’re using – and to provide users with as seamless an experience as possible as they roam between devices.”

Open Architecture
XenDesktop 4 is the only product on the market to support every major server virtualization platform, including Citrix XenServer™, Microsoft Windows Server® Hyper-V™, and VMware ESX™. It is also the only desktop virtualization product in the industry to support VMware vSphere™. This unprecedented flexibility makes it easy for customers to choose whatever hypervisor best fits their unique business requirements with no limitations or proprietary lock-in.

Pricing and Availability
XenDesktop 4 will be generally available beginning on November 16, 2009 and will be licensed on a per user basis. This model allows each end user to use an unlimited number of connected or offline devices at no additional cost. XenDesktop 4 will be available in three editions with the following suggested list prices:

• Standard – $75 per user
• Enterprise – $225 per user
• Platinum –  $350 per user

As a special, limited time offer, Citrix XenApp customers who are ready to step up from standalone app delivery to full desktop virtualization, will also have an opportunity to trade their existing XenApp licenses for new XenDesktop 4 licenses on a 2-for-1 basis (for program details see related announcement today).

Secrets, Lies and VDI – Dispelling the Myths
Citrix’s desktop and application virtualization solutions, including XenDesktop 4 and XenApp 5, will be featured in a global, online event on October 20, 2009. This virtual event titled, “Secrets, Lies and VDI: Dispel the Myths and Uncover the Truth about Desktop and Application Virtualization” will feature presentations, chat sessions and online demos from Citrix, as well as participation from key Citrix partners such as CSC, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, NetApp, Microsoft and Wyse and over 25 sponsors and Citrix Ready™ partner exhibitors. Citrix will also be providing an exclusive preview of this event for all certified channel partners on October 13, 2009.

Supporting Resources
Follow Citrix XenDesktop on the web for the latest news and information at:

• Citrix XenDesktop 4 page
• Citrix XenDesktop Community
• Citrix on Facebook
• Citrix on Twitter: @XenDesktop and #XD4
• Ask the Architect: Dan Feller on desktop virtualization
• XenDesktop Training

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is a leading provider of virtualization, networking and cloud computing solutions for more than 230,000 organizations worldwide. Its Citrix Delivery Center™, Citrix Cloud Center™ (C3) and Citrix Online product families radically simplify computing for millions of users, delivering desktops and applications as an on-demand service to any user, in any location on any device. Citrix customers include the world’s largest Internet companies, 99 percent of Fortune Global 500 enterprises, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers worldwide. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies worldwide in more than 100 countries. Founded in 1989, annual revenue in 2008 was $1.6 billion.

HDX Brings “High-Definition Experience” to Hosted Virtual Desktops
Widespread adoption of desktop virtualization requires the ability to deliver a high-performance, personalized experience for hosted virtual desktops that is as good as an installed desktop on a local PC.  To enhance this experience, XenDesktop 3 adds the new Citrix HDX MediaStream technology, which accelerates multimedia performance by sending compressed streams to endpoints and playing them locally. XenDesktop 3 also incorporates Citrix HDX Plug-and-Play technology for transparent support of MP3 players, digital cameras, smart phones, scanners and other local devices, as well as Citrix HDX Broadcast technology for reliable, high-performance acceleration of virtual desktops and applications over any network, including high-latency and low-bandwidth environments.

Twice the Number of Hosted Virtual Desktops per Server
XenDesktop 3 includes several enhancements that dramatically improve virtual machine density and efficiency in the datacenter, allowing customers to host up to twice as many hosted virtual desktops per server as previous versions.  These new optimizations cut server acquisition costs in half and dramatically reduce ongoing management and power consumption costs, allowing significantly larger deployments than before at no additional cost.

Manage Centrally, Run in the Datacenter or at the End Point
With version 3, XenDesktop becomes the first solution on the market to deliver both hosted virtual desktops and local streamed desktops from a single image store, leveraging the same delivery infrastructure. Most virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions on the market offer only hosted virtual desktops, in which each desktop runs inside a virtual machine in the datacenter. Adding support for local streamed desktops lets XenDesktop administrators stream desktops from the same golden master images, and execute them locally on any network-connected endpoint capable of running a desktop operating system. This powerful combination adds significant flexibility and cost savings, allowing IT to centrally manage desktops for office workers and run them wherever it makes the most sense, leveraging the distributed processing power of both servers and endpoint devices.

Enhanced Profile Management and Smart Card Support
XenDesktop 3 also includes a variety of new features to support simpler management, easier user personalization and enhanced security. Most significant among these new features is fully integrated user profile management, making it far easier for IT to provide a consistent, personalized experience for each unique user every time they log in. Version 3 also includes broad support for smart card security authentication systems which are widely adopted throughout government, financial services and healthcare organizations.  XenDesktop not only enables this added level of security for gaining general access to the desktop environment, it also ensures that this information is seamlessly and transparently passed through to individual applications within each virtual desktop. Additional details regarding all the new XenDesktop 3 functionality can be found at http://www.citrix.com/xendesktop3.

“The release of XenDesktop 3 will accelerate virtual desktop adoption by driving down costs through centralized management and delivery. With HDX Technology, we are providing users a true high-definition experience for their desktops, addressing a critical requirement for broad user acceptance,” said Raj Dhingra, group vice president and general manager of the Desktop Delivery Group at Citrix. “Through these innovations, we are transforming the way desktops are delivered and managed, offering a secure, high-performance and personalized desktop for our enterprise customers.”  

“Microsoft and Citrix have been delivering value to desktop customers for more than 20 years. Our joint VDI offer provides customers with the best in class virtual desktop experience through Citrix XenDesktop 3; integrated management across existing physical and virtual desktops with Microsoft System Center; and cost-effective virtualization with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V,” said Scott Woodgate, director, desktop virtualization, Microsoft.

Pricing and Availability
Citrix XenDesktop 3 will be generally available from authorized Citrix partners in February 2009, and from the Citrix website at http://www.citrix.com/xendesktop. Suggested retail pricing begins at $75 per concurrent user.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in Application Delivery Infrastructure. More than 215,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 8,000 partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2008 was $1.6 billion.

For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance.  Those statements involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including risks associated with revenue growth and recognition of revenue, products, their development and distribution, product demand and pipeline, economic and competitive factors, the Company’s key strategic relationships, acquisition and related integration risks as well as other risks detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release or with respect to the announcements described herein.

# # #
Citrix®, XenDesktop™, HDX™ and Citrix Delivery Center™ are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

“XenApp 5 broadens the horizon of the end-user experience and accessibility by delivering an end-to-end virtualization solution that addresses the needs of both local and hosted applications,” said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “In addition, XenApp 5 is giving new and existing customers a welcome boost in performance at an attractive price-point, two highly sought-after requirements for companies investing in strategic technologies in today’s economy.”

A key component of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, XenApp combined with Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix® XenServer™, creates an end-to-end virtualization solution that spans servers, applications and desktops. The new XenApp 5 release is being featured on September 9, 2008 as part of a global, online launch event called, Citrix Delivery Center Live!  This virtual event is the first in a series that will take place in the second half of 2008 highlighting the entire Citrix Delivery Center product family. This debut event features presentations, chat sessions and online demos from Citrix, as well as participation from key partners such as Microsoft and Intel.

Application Virtualization Cuts Cost of Application Management in Half
Windows-based applications continue to represent the majority of applications managed by IT today. Unfortunately, traditional methods of installing, patching, updating, managing and removing these applications on every desktop can be extremely complex and costly with today’s rapidly changing business environment and user requirements. As a result, IT costs continue to climb, business needs are left unmet and user experience and productivity suffer.

To thrive in today’s volatile business environment, organizations need a better, more flexible approach for delivering these applications across a diverse and rapidly changing user base. For more than 200,000 customers and 100 million end users around the world, centralizing applications in the datacenter and delivering them as an on-demand service to end users via Citrix XenApp has proven to be the answer.  In fact, in a recent study, Gartner found that the total cost of ownership of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50 percent lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.²

Delivering a “Better-than-Installed” Experience
With the release of XenApp 5, Citrix is raising the bar once again with significant new improvements to performance, user experience and cost savings. With version 5, Citrix has improved local application start-up time by up to 10 times, enabled IT to prioritize users and applications for maximum performance and dramatically enhanced ease-of-use for end users. In addition, XenApp 5 reduces the cost of application preparation and ongoing maintenance by more than 25 percent and cuts support costs by making it easy for IT to proactively detect and prevent potential performance issues even before they occur. In total, XenApp 5 includes more than 50 new major enhancements that come together to deliver an experience that is unequivocally “better-than-installed” for both end users and IT.

Delivering Applications to Virtual and Physical Desktops
XenApp 5 is the best way to deliver applications to both physical and virtual desktops and is a key component of the Citrix desktop delivery solution, XenDesktop. Using XenApp to deliver applications into virtual desktops, in fact, has been proven to cut down server infrastructure costs by an additional 50 percent³, further improving datacenter efficiency and green computing initiatives.

“The introduction of XenApp 5 represents an important step in the continued innovation of Citrix flagship product. With this latest release, Citrix is building upon the legacy that began almost 20 years ago,” said Gordon Payne, senior vice president and general manager, Delivery Systems Division, Citrix Systems. “XenApp is a cornerstone of our Citrix Delivery Center product family and allows our customers to move beyond merely deploying applications to delivering them to users in a flexible, cost-effective, scalable manner.”

Enabling a Smooth Transition to Microsoft Windows Server 2008
XenApp 5, which runs on the Microsoft Windows Server platform, leverages all the enhancements in Windows Server 2008 and fully supports Windows Server 2003. This enables existing Windows Server 2003 customers to immediately deploy Windows Server 2008 into their existing XenApp environments in any mix.

“Microsoft and Citrix share a common vision around application delivery,” said Chandra Shekaran, general manager of presentation and hosted desktop virtualization at Microsoft Corp.  “With XenApp 5, Citrix is once again extending the core platform capabilities of Windows Server 2008 while delivering a leading virtualization solution compatible with the Hyper-V role.  XenApp 5 can help provide better user performance and cost savings to our joint customers who are turning to Microsoft and Citrix for their VDI and remote computing projects.”

Pricing and Availability
XenApp 5 will be available September 10, 2008. For North America, suggested retail pricing is per concurrent user (CCU) and includes one year of Subscription Advantage:

• Advanced Edition – US $350
• Enterprise Edition – US $450
• Platinum Edition – US $600

Current customers with Subscription Advantage can upgrade at no additional charge. Standalone pricing for client-side application streaming and virtualization begins as low as $60 per CCU. For more information on XenApp, visit www.citrix.com/xenapp.
Training and Certification
New instructor-led and e-Learning training courses will be available to help end-users and partners maximize their use of XenApp 5. These training offerings include skills updates as well as full product training. In addition, a new CCA (Citrix Certified Administrator) is being developed to support the product. The new courses and certification are expected to be available upon product release. For more information and updates, please visit the Citrix Education website at www.citrixeducation.com.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in Application Delivery Infrastructure. More than 215,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 8,000 partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2007 was $1.4 billion.

As virtualization becomes a mainstream component of enterprise IT infrastructure, users need ways to automate and secure the lifecycle of their application workloads without being tied to a single hypervisor platform or virtual hard disk format. By implementing the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) OVF standard, Project Kensho will enable ISVs and enterprise IT staff to leverage a hypervisor-independent portable virtual machine format that packages a complete application workload as a secure, portable, pre-configured open standard virtual appliance. This will solve a multitude of interoperability issues between virtualization platforms while allowing automated provisioning and management of applications, rather than just virtual machines.  Users will be able to easily install and use any OVF packaged application workload regardless of which virtualization platform they use – whether it be XenServer, Hyper-V, or ESX.

“XenServer delivers the benefits of fast, free, ubiquitous and compatible virtualization, whether from Citrix, Microsoft or VMware,” said Simon Crosby, CTO of the Virtualization and Management Division, Citrix Systems.  “Project Kensho highlights the Citrix commitment to interoperability for virtualization, while maximizing price/performance and richness of features at the virtual infrastructure level.”

The OVF specification was originally co-authored by Citrix and VMware, with contributions from Dell, HP, IBM and Microsoft.  The companies then jointly submitted the draft to the DMTF standardization process.

Added Value for Microsoft Hyper-V
Project Kensho will also enable customers to leverage the interoperability benefits and compatibility between long-time partners Citrix and Microsoft to extend the Microsoft platform.  For example, XenServer is enhanced with CIM-based management APIs to allow any DMTF-compliant management tool to manage XenServer, including Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager. And because the tools are based on a standards framework, customers are ensured a rich ecosystem of options for virtualization.  In addition, because of the open-standard format and special licensing features in OVF, customers can seamlessly move their current virtualized workloads to either XenServer or Hyper-V, enabling them to distribute virtual workloads to the platform of choice while simultaneously ensuring compliance with the underlying licensing requirements for each virtual appliance.

Project Kensho will support the vision of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, helping customers transform static datacenters into dynamic “delivery centers” for the best performance, security, cost savings and business agility. The tools developed through Project Kensho will be easily integrated into Citrix Workflow Studio™ based orchestrations, for example, to provide an automated, environment for managing the import and export of applications from any major virtualization platform.

Pricing and Availability
A technical preview of Project Kensho tools will be available for free download in September 2008.  For more information about Citrix XenServer, please visit: http://www.citrix.com/xenserver.

About XenServer
Citrix XenServer, a member of the Citrix Delivery Center product family, is an enterprise-class solution for virtualizing application workloads across any number of servers in the datacenter as a flexible aggregated pool of computing resources. With the new Platinum Edition, XenServer is the first and only solution on the market to address both virtual and physical servers, making the entire datacenter more dynamic.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in application delivery infrastructure. More than 215,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 8,000 partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2007 was $1.4 billion.

Original press release at Citrix.com.