Cisco and Citrix Extend Partnership into Networking, Cloud and Mobility

Significant Investment in People and Resources Globally to Drive Innovation and Go-to-Market

BARCELONA, Spain — October 17, 2012 — Today at Citrix Synergy™, the conference where mobile workstyles and cloud services meet, Cisco and Citrix announced a significant expansion of their successful desktop virtualization partnership into three strategic areas:  cloud networking, cloud orchestration, and mobile workstyles.

Cisco and Citrix believe the IT industry is on the verge of the next major architectural transition:  the mobile-cloud era. To help enterprise and service provider customers capture the market transition and transform their business models, Cisco and Citrix will collaborate to unify best-of-breed technologies into innovative solutions for the mobile-cloud era.

The expanded partnership will include a significant investment in people and resources to drive market-leading technology innovation, solution integration and validation, customer support, and joint go-to-market investment on a global basis.

Highlights:

• Cloud Networking: Cisco is evolving its L4-L7 services in data centers and cloud infrastructure with an integrated, multi-services architecture. Cisco Cloud Network Services is an ecosystem-based approach that incorporates best-in-class Cisco and partner application and network services. Bringing these key technologies together into an integrated solution will help enterprise and service provider customers deliver true cloud service automation with deep network- and application-level intelligence to speed service deployments.

As part of the strategy, Cisco and Citrix intend to jointly integrate the Citrix NetScaler application delivery controller (ADC) to seamlessly coexist with other Cisco network and security services, such as Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) and Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA). The companies also intend to integrate Cisco Nexus 1000V with Citrix XenServer® to enable enterprise and service provider customers to build clouds based in part on key open source technology. Cisco will continue to fully support existing customers of its Application Control Engine (ACE) product line and will recommend Citrix NetScaler as an alternative to customers who want to deploy a next-generation ADC.

• Cloud Orchestration: Cisco and Citrix intend to develop an integrated cloud solution for enterprise and service provider deployments based on the companies’ best-in-class portfolios. This will include the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Cisco Nexus Series switching, and Cisco Open Network Environment (ONE) components, as well as Citrix’s leading cloud orchestration solution — Citrix CloudPlatform, powered by Apache CloudStack. When developed, this integrated solution will help enterprise and service provider customers deliver highly efficient public, private and hybrid clouds.

• Mobile Workstyles: Cisco and Citrix intend to develop “mobile workstyle and BYOD” solutions that give mobile users a unified way to securely access business apps, data, voice and collaboration services from any device, anywhere.  The joint solution, when developed, will link Cisco collaboration technology, including tighter integration of the Cisco Jabber client, with the Citrix Receiver self-service mobile access client and Citrix CloudGateway for enterprise mobility management. The joint solution will also include Citrix ShareFile for secure, cloud-based “follow-me data” services across any mix of user devices. To enable an optimized, monitored and managed rich-media experience for accessing virtual Windows apps and desktops from mobile devices, Citrix will incorporate Cisco MediaNet into Citrix XenDesktop® and XenApp®. To secure mobile workers, Cisco and Citrix will link Citrix Receiver™, Citrix Access Gateway™, and CloudGateway™ with the Cisco secure access portfolio including Cisco AnyConnect, Cisco ASA, and the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE).

• Partnership Momentum:  Since announcing a partnership last year at Citrix Synergy, Cisco and Citrix have more than doubled business together by deploying tens of thousands of new virtual desktops to small and large customers across the globe through the successful implementation of Cisco’s Virtualization Experience Infrastructure (VXI) smart solution with Citrix XenDesktop. Recognizing the transformation taking place in enterprise networks as companies support more mobile, anytime, anywhere access to enterprise applications, Cisco and Citrix are capitalizing on the opportunity to align and deliver a unique solution.  By combining Cisco’s industry leading compute, networking and collaboration capabilities with Citrix’s desktop virtualization software, the companies are delivering the industry’s first true rich-media virtual desktop solution.

Quotes:

Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer, Cisco

“As IT enters the mobile-cloud era, IT providers need to be more innovative about addressing customers’ fast changing needs.  Over the past two years, Cisco and Citrix have collaborated to deliver significant innovation into the market.  Now we are excited to accelerate our partnership into cloud, networking and mobility.”

Wes Wasson, Senior Vice President of Strategy, Citrix

“Citrix and Cisco share a common vision of computing in the mobile and cloud era, and have a strong shared culture focused on openness, user experience and a relentless commitment to customer success. Extending our successful partnership to new areas like cloud, mobility and networking will allow us to bring some amazing new innovations to our joint customers in both the enterprise and service provider markets.”

Joe Skorupa, Vice President, Distinguished Analyst, Gartner

“The Nexus of converging forces of social, mobile, cloud and information is dramatically changing data center architectures and how services are delivered. The next generation network has to incorporate best-in-class application delivery controller (ADC) capabilities, integrated into a services architecture that is orchestrated at cloud-scale.”

Related Links

• Blog Post: Doubling our Business Together:  One Year After the Cisco-Citrix Partnership
• Blog Post: Expanded Partnership Combines Cisco’s Leadership in Cloud Networking Services with Citrix NetScaler to Accelerate Next-Gen Cloud Network Services
• Related Announcement: Cisco and Citrix Deliver Comprehensive Desktop Virtualization Solution(September 2010)
• Related Announcement: Cisco and Citrix Form Strategic Alliance to Deliver Rich Media Enabled Virtual Desktops(October 2011)
• Related Announcement: Cisco and Citrix Simplify Go-to-Market with New Partner Accelerator Initiative(June 2012)
• Cisco VXI: Desktop Virtualization with Citrix
• Cisco and Citrix Overview Website
• Welcome to NetScaler Website
• How to Build a Cloud from the Ground Up

Follow us online

• Twitter: @Citrix, @CiscoSystems, #CitrixSynergy
• Facebook: Citrix, Cisco Data Center

About Cisco

Cisco, (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) is the worldwide leader in networking that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. Information about Cisco can be found at http://www.cisco.com. For ongoing news, please go to http://newsroom.cisco.com.

About Citrix

Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) transforms how businesses and IT work and people collaborate in the cloud era. With market-leading cloud, collaboration, networking and virtualization technologies, Citrix powers mobile workstyles and cloud services, making complex enterprise IT simpler and more accessible for 260,000 organizations. Citrix products touch 75 percent of Internet users each day and it partners with more than 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2011 was $2.21 billion. Learn more at www.citrix.com.

Forward-Looking Statement

This release may be deemed to contain forward-looking statements, which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements include, among others, statements regarding the IT industry being on the verge of the next major architectural transition, collaboration between the companies to unify best-of-breed technologies, significant joint investment, joint integration of the companies’ products and development of integrated solutions, delivery of the industry’s first true rich-media virtual desktop solution, acceleration of the partnership into cloud, networking and mobility, bringing new innovations to the companies’ joint customers and statements by executives of each company.  Readers are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results due to a variety of factors, including, among other things, the ability of the companies to partner successfully; the ability to achieve expected benefits of the partnership; business and economic conditions globally and growth trends and uncertainty in the information technology and networking industries; competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization and cloud computing markets, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; changes to product development timelines; demand for new products and services as well as risks associated with their development and distribution; revenue growth; Cisco’s and Citrix’s ability to protect their proprietary technology; and Cisco’s and Citrix’s ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; customer markets and various geographic regions; global economic conditions and uncertainties in the geopolitical environment; and other risk factors set forth in Cisco’s most recent report on Form 10-K filed on September 12, 2012, and Citrix’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q filed on February 23, 2012 and August 7, 2012, respectively.  Any forward-looking statements in this release are based on limited information currently available to Cisco and Citrix, which is subject to change, and neither Cisco nor Citrix assume any obligation to update the information after the date of this release.

###

Cisco and the Cisco logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. A listing of Cisco’s trademarks can be found at www.cisco.com/go/trademarks. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

Citrix® is a registered trademark 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.

PR Archives: Latest, By Company, By Date