Third Octet Named to CRN’s Inaugural Next-Gen 250 List

Posted in: Industry News, Third Octet News, Words by thirdoctet on September 7, 2011 | No Comments

Ranking Highlights the Up and Coming VARS in North America

August 31, 2011 – Third Octet today announced Everything Channel has named the company to the first ever 2011 CRN Next-Gen 250 list.  The CRN Next-Gen 250 is an annual listing of innovative and nimble business and technology integrators, solution providers, and resellers in North America offering solutions and services in cloud computing, mobility, unified communications, virtualization and other emerging technologies.

The CRN Next-Generation 250 list is comprised of the most exciting new solution provider organizations (founded 2000-2011) bringing new and emerging implementation ideas and business models to the market.

“In today’s competitive environment solution providers have to do more than just talk about innovation. The ability to quickly implement new processes, models and technologies is what drives margins and the bottom line,” said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel. “The CRN Next-gen 250 highlights the most interesting new solution providers who are demonstrating such innovation and uncovers the new techniques and technologies that are driving their success.”

For more information, visit the CRN Next-Gen 250 List.

Third Octet Inc.

Third Octet is an Information Technology consulting firm specializing in the fulfillment of business challenges utilizing sound technology services, solutions, and approaches, targeted towards the small to medium (SMB) and enterprise markets. Our approach is unique, and not specific to a particular subset of industry verticals but, rather, specific to the objectives and needs of all businesses – ensuring that an organizations technology investments not only make sense but that they also satisfy business requirements. Your business challenge is our business challenge, and it’s in our expertise that gives us the enablement to ensure that the business equation is solved with the most sensible and cost effective solution.

Everything Channel

Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company.

UBM plc

UBM plc is a leading global business media company. We inform markets and bring the world’s buyers and sellers together at events, online, in print and provide them with the information they need to do business successfully. We focus on serving professional commercial communities, from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists around the world. Our 6,000 staff in more than 30 countries are organized into specialist teams that serve these communities, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently.

Citrix XenDesktop 4 Wins InfoWorld 2010 Technology of the Year Award

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on January 14, 2010 | No Comments

1/14/2010 » Santa Clara » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) today announced that Citrix® XenDesktop™ 4 has been honored as an InfoWorld 2010 Technology of the Year Award winner. Selected by InfoWorld Test Center editors and reviewers, the annual awards identify the best and most innovative products on the IT landscape. Winners are drawn from all of the products tested during the past year, with the final selections made by InfoWorld’s Test Center staff. All products reviewed by the Test Center are eligible to win.
Read more…

Thinking of switching from VMware to XenServer or Hyper-V? Think Project Open Door from Citrix.

Posted in: C-Level, Industry News, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on October 14, 2009 | No Comments

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.”

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Citrix Drives Mainstream Adoption of Desktop Virtualization with XenDesktop 4

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on October 7, 2009 | No Comments

SANTA CLARA, CA » 10/6/2009 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), today announced Citrix® XenDesktop™ 4, a groundbreaking new product designed to make virtual desktops a mainstream reality for hundreds of millions of corporate employees for the first time ever. Unlike first-generation 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 enables improved ROI, simplified management and extends the benefits of virtualization to every employee in the enterprise. XenDesktop 4 further simplifies desktop computing by integrating all the capabilities of Citrix XenApp™, enabling customers to deliver on-demand applications to physical or virtual desktops as a seamless part of their overall desktop strategy. To ensure every user gets a high-definition experience at all times, XenDesktop 4 also includes significant enhancements to its industry-leading HDX™ technology. It also builds on the company’s 20-year partnership with Microsoft, simplifying the management of virtual desktops through Microsoft System Center, and adding multiple enhancements that further extend the value of Microsoft Windows and Windows Server platforms. In total, XenDesktop 4 adds more than 70 new features, significantly enhancing its performance, security and readiness for large, enterprise-wide deployments.

“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)

Read more…

McAfee, Inc. to Acquire MX Logic and Provide Industry’s Most Comprehensive Security-as-a-Service Portfolio

Posted in: C-Level, Communicate, Industry News, Messaging, Security by thirdoctet on July 30, 2009 | No Comments

Company to Add More than 40,000 Customers, Four Million End Users and 1,800 Partners

Care of McAfee.com; SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 30, 2009 – McAfee, Inc. (NYSE:MFE) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately owned MX Logic, Inc. for approximately $140 million in cash at closing, with an earn-out of up to an additional $30 million in cash if certain performance targets are met. MX Logic is a leading global provider of cloud-based email and Web security and email archiving and continuity services. Adding MX Logic’s technologies and services will provide McAfee with the most comprehensive cloud-based security portfolio in the industry, one that combines leading global threat intelligence technologies from McAfee with its Security-as-a-Service solutions:Global Threat Intelligence

• McAfee® Artemis protects more than 33 million nodes through real-time cloud-based intelligence
• McAfee TrustedSource^™ analyzes data from more than 100 billion messages per month
• McAfee SiteAdvisor^® provides consumers with a safer search, surf, and online shopping experience by serving 1.9 billion ratings every day

Security-as-a-Service

• McAfee Total Protection Service, endpoint protection via Security-as-a-Service, protects more than five million users with centralized management in the cloud
• McAfee Vulnerability Assessment, Web application and network vulnerability assessments via Security-as-a-Service, provides real-time validation against industry standards including Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
• McAfee SECURE helps keep consumers safe from cybercrime by scanning more than 80,000 merchant Web sites daily and serving more than 126 billion impressions since 2008. Additionally, McAfee vulnerability scanning services protects more than 250,000 Web sites.
• MX Logic protects 40,000 customers with more than four million end users with email and Web security and email archiving and continuity services
• More than 1800 MX Logic channel partners provide a strong Security SaaS partner ecosystem to cross sell McAfee Security SaaS solutions and develop co-branded and bundled offerings
• MX Logic data centers in Asia Pacific, EMEA, Japan and the United States protect a geographically dispersed customer base with the capacity to expand into new customer segments and global markets

“The acquisition of MX Logic will reinforce our position as a leader in Security-as-a-Service, and brings world-class email and Web defense, including archiving and business continuity services, extending our proven expertise in providing cloud-based services to our customers,” said Dave DeWalt, president and chief executive officer, McAfee. “MX Logic aligns with the McAfee vision to lead Security SaaS by bringing industry-leading technologies and a strong partner ecosystem.”

Following completion of the proposed acquisition, McAfee will offer the most comprehensive and dedicated security portfolio in the market with the broadest set of delivery options including appliances, software, in the cloud or hybrid deployments. This approach will give businesses in all market segments the flexibility to purchase these solutions as standalone offerings or to mix and match these deployment choices to meet their exact needs.

“We view McAfee as the leading dedicated security company and a pioneer in Security-as-a-Service,” said John Street, chairman and chief executive officer, MX Logic. “We will now be even better equipped to help our customers address the complex challenges associated with blocking spam, phishing scams, viruses in the cloud, and enforcing email policies to prevent sensitive data leaks.”

Following the closing of the proposed acquisition, the MX Logic team will report to the McAfee Software-as-a-Service business unit, headed by Marc Olesen, senior vice president and general manager.

The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2009, contingent upon regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. McAfee expects the impact of the acquisition of MX Logic to be breakeven to slightly accretive in 2010 on non-GAAP earnings-per-share and more dilutive to GAAP earnings-per-share. For the remainder of 2009 we expect the impact of the acquisition to be $0.01 to $0.02 dilutive to non-GAAP earnings-per-share and more dilutive to GAAP earnings-per-share. Non-GAAP earnings-per-share will exclude the impact of amortization of acquired intangibles, stock-based compensation expense and other nonrecurring costs or charges. For additional information, please reference the acquisition landing page at http://www.mcafee.com/us/about/corporate/mcafee_mxlogic.html and the McAfee Security Insights Blog at http://siblog.McAfee.com/.

About McAfee, Inc.

McAfee, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company. McAfee is committed to relentlessly tackling the world’s toughest security challenges. The company delivers proactive and proven solutions and services that help secure systems and networks around the world, allowing users to safely connect to the Internet, browse and shop the web more securely. Backed by an award-winning research team, McAfee creates innovative products that empower home users, businesses, the public sector and service providers by enabling them to prove compliance with regulations, protect data, prevent disruptions, identify vulnerabilities, and continuously monitor and improve their security. http://www.mcafee.com.

About MX Logic, Inc.

MX Logic is a leading global provider of managed email and Web security, archiving, and business continuity services that deliver enterprise-grade performance without enterprise-level complexity and cost. Its easy-to-use, award-winning services reduce risk and liability, lower overall IT costs, and increase productivity. MX Logic services are available through its industry-leading partner network. For more information, visit www.MXLogic.com.

Forward-Looking Statements:

This release contains forward-looking statements, which include those regarding future plans that McAfee has for the MX Logic business, expectations of McAfee regarding the combination of MX Logic’s products and services with McAfee products and services, the expected closing date of the acquisition, the expectations as to the opportunities resulting from the acquisition of the MX Logic business, expected plans that McAfee has for the integration of MX Logic’s products and business and the expected impact of the acquisition on McAfee financial results for 2009 and 2010. Factors that could cause the actual results or outcomes from the acquisition to be materially different from those anticipated include, among others, the inability to complete the acquisition on acceptable terms, or at all; the inability to integrate successfully MX Logic within McAfee or to realize synergies from such integration; costs related to the acquisition of MX Logic; the customer response to, and acceptance of, the combination of MX Logic’s products with McAfee products; the economic environment of the industries in which McAfee and MX Logic operate. In addition, actual results are subject to other risks and uncertainties that relate more broadly to overall McAfee business, including those more fully described in McAfee filings with the SEC, including its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2008, and its subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking statements in this press release are based on information available to McAfee as of the date hereof, and McAfee expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

NOTE: McAfee and any additional McAfee marks herein are registered trademarks of McAfee, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. McAfee Red in connection with security is distinctive of McAfee brand products. All other registered and unregistered trademarks herein are the sole property of their respective owners. Product specifications subject to change at any time without prior notice. © 2009 McAfee, Inc. All rights reserved.

VMware Unveils the Industry’s First Operating System for Building the Internal Cloud – http://twurl.nl/ordked

Posted in: Industry News, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on April 21, 2009 | No Comments

VMware Unveils the Industry’s First Operating System for Building the Internal Cloud – http://twurl.nl/ordked

New Citrix XenServer Now Available from Hundreds of Websites, Free Enterprise-Class Virtualization to Everyone http://snurl.com/exk5e

Posted in: Industry News, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on March 31, 2009 | No Comments

New Citrix XenServer Now Available from Hundreds of Websites, Free Enterprise-Class Virtualization to Everyone http://snurl.com/exk5e

Citrix XenDesktop 3 Enhances Multimedia Experience, Doubles Scalability and Adds Streamed Desktop Support

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization by thirdoctet on February 5, 2009 | No Comments

SANTA CLARA, CA » 2/4/2009 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced Citrix® XenDesktop™ 3, the newest release of its market-leading desktop virtualization solution. XenDesktop 3, a key component of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, incorporates several of the company’s new Citrix® HDX™ technologies (see separate announcement today), giving virtual desktop users a richer “high-definition” experience with enhanced support for multimedia, audio and video. XenDesktop 3 also dramatically improves scalability, hosting twice as many virtual desktops per server as previous versions. And with version 3, XenDesktop becomes the first product on the market to deliver Microsoft® Windows® desktops from a common set of centrally managed images that can be run either in the datacenter (hosted), or directly on a PC or thin client device (local). This new capability gives IT organizations far more flexibility, reducing desktop management costs by making efficient use of distributed processing power across both servers and end point devices.

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.

Citrix XenApp 5 Breaks Performance, User Experience and Cost Barriers to Expand Application Virtualization Adoption

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization by thirdoctet on September 2, 2008 | No Comments

SANTA CLARA, CA. » 8/25/2008 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced Citrix® XenApp™ 5, the next generation of the world’s most widely-deployed application virtualization solution. The new release of Citrix’s flagship product breaks through performance and operating-cost barriers, making application start times up to 10 times faster, dramatically improving end-user experience and lowering application management costs by more than 25 percent over previous versions.¹  XenApp 5, when used alone or in conjunction with Citrix® XenDesktop™, now makes it even easier for customers to centralize applications in the datacenter and deliver them as an on-demand service to both physical or virtual desktops for either online or offline usage – an approach that improves security, enhances user productivity and can save millions of dollars over traditional methods of installing and managing applications.

“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.

Citrix Systems Unveils Project Kensho for Easy Creation of Hypervisor-Independent Application Workloads

Posted in: Application Delivery, Industry News, Virtualization by thirdoctet on July 25, 2008 | No Comments

Santa Clara, CA » 7/15/2008 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced “Project Kensho,” which will deliver Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) tools that, for the first time, allow independent software vendors (ISVs) and enterprise IT managers to easily create hypervisor-independent, portable enterprise application workloads.  These tools will allow application workloads to be imported and run across Citrix XenServer™, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V™ and VMware™ ESX virtual environments.

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.