My guess is most people reading this are of the technocrat ilk.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just gives us a slanted view of the world.  We see things from a technology standpoint and not from a people orientation.  That's why the science of User Experience exists.  If programmers and technologists at large produced technology that was well suited for the average human, there would be no need to re-engineer it after it was "finished".  And that is the dilemma of Cloud Computing.  The reason it has such a huge following with great expectations and at the same time resembles the well known fable Stone Soup, is that the most important ingredient is missing.... the human being.

Who will be the winner in Cloud Computing?  Will it be  Amazon, Microsoft, or Google?  Could it be Rackspace, Savvis, Verio or some other tier two player.  Or maybe it's the proverbial start up that has yet to come on to the radar screen.  It could be all or none of these.  But what determines who wins isn't who has the largest data center with throw-away server blades or even who has the cheapest storage array.  The winner will be the company or companies that figure out that in order to be successful, you have to flip your business upside down and start in the place where any of  this makes a difference.

Ah! you say, not the dreaded "U" word.  Yes, it's the User.  Many of us subscribe to the technocratic oath, "If it weren't for all those stupid users, my job we be a lot easier!"  Indeed it would, because without end users there would be no reason to write code, test code, focus group code, market.. sell or support code.  There would be no need for hypervisors, virtualization, or  network optimization.  We could all just talk to each other in binary or Linux script and never even see the light of day.  But alas, we develop technology for people who think "single instance management" is what a Geek calls his landlord. 

There are  three basic tenants that are quintessential for the company who wants to win the Cloud race;  Simplicity, Seamlessness and Security.  And remember these tenants are not from the viewpoint of the technologist, but from the viewpoint of the dreaded USER!

Simplicity - Imagine a place where the user is the center of the universe.  Where any call to any algorithm or any routine or any data path was controlled by the user.  Where domains could be set up dynamically based on the user's persona  (action, place, language, etc).  Imagine a user not only having access to any application, anywhere on any device but having it available based on usage patterns and individuality.  This is the ultimate goal of persistence.  Having the ability to not only store off a linear progression of data which is mounted to a virtual drive...  but to memorize the usage patterns of individuals and allow them to access their information from anywhere as though they had just put it down on the kitchen table to grab a snack and then come back to it mid sentence, or mid cell/column or mid presentation.  The Citrix Any (application), Any (device), Any (where) philosophy maps to this goal.

Seamlessness - If you asked the typical User how much bandwidth they had they would have no idea what you were talking about.  The more savvy User might respond, "I have DSL at home but I work on the LAN at work."  They couldn't tell you the difference between upstream, downstream, packet loss, throughput or MBPS.  And guess what? They don't care!  All they want is  for their 'service' to be dependable and consistent.  And that is the perspective the winner of the Cloud race will have...The ability to 'understand' the User in such as way that he has service (access to any application or information) regardless of the network he is on or the machine which he happens to have at his disposal.  That means that applications must be reliable and consistent whether they are running on a high end desktop or a low end PDA.  "Well!", some of you will say, "that is unreasonable and is not technically possible!"  Welcome to the world of Cloud Computing and the dreaded USER!  Whoever owns  the User Experience is the one who will win the Cloud Computing race.  Are you surprised?  You shouldn't be.  Why do you think Apple spends so much time and effort advertising applications and not their cool new phone.  The tag line is "There's an app for that."  Not , "there's a cool new phone for graphics and user interface".  That's how a technocrat thinks, not a typical User.  And Apple embeds its User Experience in its devices... whether the high end desktop or the low end PDA.  They make their money off of the music and software to load and run it... and off of any and all of the applications in the Apple Store.  How much money do you think AT&T makes off of the applications run on an iPhone... nada, nothing ,zippo... that's how much.  That is why Apple is in a better place to win the Cloud race than AT&T... even though AT&T owns the pipe, the data centers and the monthly access bill.  The Citrix Receiver and HDX technology fit this goal.

Security - Users don't care about 64 bit encryption or VPNs or tunnels or storage array administration.  They only care about whether or not other people (companies or individuals) have access to their information when they want them to and don't have access when they don't want them to.  Imagine a universe where the same persona for domain control (simplicity) was used to control information access.  Where an individual would be treated as an object with attributes defining his security parameters.  And imagine a security system that allowed individuals to create their own profiles which were deterministic in nature regarding their separate and distinct pieces of information, by media type (voice, video, text) and by distribution (Friends, Home, Work - proprietary, Work - Public, etc).  "Too difficult!  That would take AI!  What are you crazy!" Does that about sum it up?  The Citrix (sorry can't talk about this yet) technology fits this goal.

Many of us who see the world through technocratic glasses will object to this logic and simply state that it can't be done.  Others, like Google who retain on average over 2,500 data points per user (those who use  Google search engines routinely) and sell billions of dollars in advertising based on profiles and personas will say... that's right it can't be done... by you!  Sprint is running a TV commercial today which identifies just how much information they know about the millions of subscribers on their network.. right down to the volume of people who light up their cell phones when landing at an airport to the number of people using Twitter (or even know what Twitter is).  All of this information is available today, it's just that the technocrats are thinking more about how many terabytes of data storage is available and how much per hour a Windows session will cost based on grid computing algorithms.

Do you think the dreaded User gives a rip about that kind of stuff?  Simple, Seamless and Secure... the company who understands that and takes advantage of it with their technology is the company who will win the Cloud Computing race!

...and the companies who understand how to create an environment where these three tenants are achievable will also win ....big time!  So take your technocrat hat off and start thinking like the dreaded User.

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In 1993 Bell Atlantic was frantically trying to figure out how to deploy television services over their network to compete with the then emerging Cable companies.  They failed.  In 1998 Verizon embarked on a campaign to provide television through their network starting with high rise apartments and condominium complexes in order to quicken the pace of deployment through what was then called MDU (Multi Dwelling Unit) delivery.  Deals were struck with huge developers and a 50 city roll out started in 2000.  They failed.  In 2001 BellSouth began deploying FTTC (Fiber to the Curb) in an effort to deliver entertainment services to their subscribers through high bandwidth fiber optic cable.  They failed.  In 2005 Southwestern Bell Communications (SBC) announced U-verse, a Very high speed Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (VHDSL) based Internet Protocol (IP) television service in Texas.  On December 16, 2008 SBC (now AT&T) announced it had signed its 1 million^th U-Verse customer.  This is a far cry from the tens of millions of customers that the cable companies have secured, but finally shows some traction. 

Why is AT&T succeeding when there has been such a long history of failure in this space?  Because over the past 10 years while Telcos have been failing at providing Cable entertainment services, cable companies like Comcast have been devouring phone subscribers.  In fact, Comcast just announced they are the fourth largest phone operator in the U.S. with 6.47 million subscribers.  It's a matter of business.  The Telco now has to succeed at providing alternate services because they have fierce competition over their core business... namely telephony.

The moral of the story is not to sell your Telco stocks or even be dismayed by the lethargic progress of these monoliths.  The moral is that whenever large corporations attempt large game changing moves, time is the only way to measure success.  Secondly, the measure of technology push and consequently adoption sometimes has to do with market pressure from competition and not just increasing revenues but protecting them as well.

So what does all of this have to do with Software as a Service?  Well, take for instance the fact that Microsoft (as well as others) started to deliver their software over the Internet in 2000, created ASP.net in 2002 and has been hard at it ever since.  With hundreds of thousands of hosted Exchange licenses in this space it's safe to say that Microsoft is entrenched and growing.  With all of the business customers that Telcos like AT&T have, why aren't they also growing this (SaaS) business?  The answer is simple.  It has not yet begun to encroach on the core telephony business.  Or has it?  The enterprise space is usually the place that large telephony companies start new services.  One only has to look at Voice over IP (VoIP) implementations to see this.  Adoption of VoIP in the Telco subscription base has grown dramatically over the past few years.  And even though the growth has slowed in this economy, there is an extending strategy emerging for mobile use of VoIP.  This is the first entry of IP delivery services to business from the Telco showing traction.

Will the big Telcos or Service Providers be competition or partners for applications hosting providers?

All of this creates opportunity for existing Tier 2 Hosting/Managed Service Providers.  Why?  Large service providers do not set the pace for early adoption.  The iPhone is one exception but even then it was actually Apple who set the pace and not AT&T.  As more businesses adopt SaaS and the market share grows, Tier 1 service providers will be forced to reckon with the delivery of applications over their networks.

Since brand is the number one asset among these service providers they will be looking to purchase "white label" offerings which have a proven track record in services, especially those that scale.  These will be the Tier 2 applications hosting companies who show promise in their subscription growth, but more importantly have adopted a strategy for growth of their data centers which adds scale and flexibility.  Since Xen is used prolifically today in large service implementations XenServer would be a likely choice for HA (High Availability) and management.  And since XenApp is the most prolific application delivery platform on the planet and has the highest utilization capacity on XenServer of any hypervisor/SBC combination, it would make sense to use it in a hosting environment for scale.

If you want to grow your current hosting business beyond Microsoft Exchange, you need to look at what a long term strategy is for servicing millions of subscribers, not just a few thousand.  Sure, in this economy you will need to pay the light bills with your core business and not throw money (CapEx and OpEx) to the wind.  But you better have a plan for sustained growth or you will be eaten alive by those companies who see the storm on the horizon for mass market application delivery.  If you don't believe me all you have to do is look to what happened last year at GE.  Even Google Apps won't compete in this market when there is an alternative that scales better like Zoho.

This is not to say you should dump all of your Windows apps... quite the opposite, for the Tier 1 service provider to pick up your service in mass, the applications will have to be in the main stream.  Launch what SMBs want and need, do it cost effectively and form a strategy for growth... that's the road to the big leagues.

If you want to learn more about a holistic approach that scales, check out the podcast that Doug Brown did a few weeks ago entitled, "Citrix Cloud Computing".

"What this power is, I cannot say. All I know is that it exists...and it becomes available only when you are in that state of mind in which you know exactly what you want...and are fully determined not to quit until you get it." - Alexander Graham Bell  (Kind of ironic don't you think?)

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In reference to hosting applications in this new Cloud world I recently heard from a guy I admire and respect, "We've been here before and all that came out of this was a bunch of hype." When we consider what happened to the Application Service Providers in 2000 that is a fair assessment. So the million dollar question(s) today is who is making money hosting applications, what applications are they using and who are they selling these subscriptions to?

The answer is a bit complex because hosting service providers come in many shapes and sizes. However, if we only take into consideration those service providers who are actually charging for application delivery (subscription of applications) and not outsourcing companies who are mainly infrastructure providers, we can distill the market down to just a few distinct categories. The chart below is a depiction of the types of applications most subscribed to in this emerging space.

Human Resource Management Systems, Collaboration and Communications, Customer Relationship Management and Content Management Systems top the list of applications being delivered via hosting among Small and Medium Businesses (SMB). When we look at the practical application of these services, there is a business reason for why this is happening. 

Smaller companies do not have the capacity for overhead related to support functions within Human Resources such as Payroll, Talent Management, Employee Review processes, etc.  It makes absolute sense that these services would be either completely outsourced or applications hosted that perform the needed function. 

In order to cut the cost of expense items such as travel, Collaboration and Conferencing using the Internet and hosted applications is a sure fired way to accomplish this.  I've got to plug Citrix Online here... some say the 3^rd largest SaaS concern in the world for this category.  Corporate email is a good fit in this category as well.  There are currently over one hundred million unmanaged electronic mailboxes worldwide today and using email that has no business continuity is dangerous and unprofessional.  SMBs use hosted business email such as Microsoft Exchange to mitigate this issue.

Customer Relationship Management services shouldn't be a surprise to anyone with the success of Saleforce.com.  But there are many CRM packages used in this space.  Using a product like XenApp to virtualize applications opens the door to products typically used in the Enterprise but can now be scaled to operate in the larger Internet cloud.  Citrix has customers today who (internally) host CRM software using XenApp to thousands of end points in remote locations worldwide.

Content Management Systems may be a bit of a surprise for some.  However, document management and workflow is a critical need especially in market verticals such as Healthcare (HIPAA) and Finance (SOX).  When requirements of this magnitude are levied on the SMB the overhead can be overwhelming.  So the IT management of a system like this is a burden not many SMBs are willing to bear.  Application hosting is a cost effective alternative.  I recently spoke to an ISV in this space who started selling his application to SMBs in the insurance industry.  It became unmanageable to scale his business so he started to host the application 8 years ago.  Now he has 12,000 SMBs using the software.

Order Management, Enterprise Relationship Planning, Web 2.0 applications and Supply Chain Management round out the list.  And there it is... the applications making the most impact and therefore the most revenue in the SaaS space among SMBs. 

What if business productivity applications such as Microsoft Office could be offered up through the Internet (Cloud)?  Service providers who have tried this before might say that this is impossible because Office wasn't designed to be hosted... but what if you could do it using a platform that could make Office run as though it were local?  Wouldn't that be great?  Citrix has the technology and the products to accomplish this and my guess is it won't be long until service providers (in 2009) actually use it to host these types of applications.

Here's another surprise.  In an economy that is shrinking in virtually every other aspect of IT, applications hosting is still growing.  What are you waiting for?

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Does your organization deliver virtual applications to the branch office over a sloooow WAN link?
Are you tired of trying to fix all of your WAN issues with a bigger and more expensive WAN connection?

There has to be a better solution...
Citrix Branch Repeater and XenApp work in concert to deliver a "high-definition" branch office experience, drastically improving the XenApp experience to branch office users. Using Citrix HDXTechnology, Branch Repeater and HDX IntelliCache adaptively orchestrate with XenApp to disable the native ICA compression used for optimizing single-user sessions.

Just how much better?

• Branch Repeater reduces XenApp traffic by up to 95 percent, increasing file transfer throughput by up to 20 times and increasing print traffic throughput by up to 33 times.
• Together these enhancements allow customers to serve up to 4x more XenApp users in each branch without upgrading bandwidth.

Learn more about ICA Optimization, how to deploy the components, and see the High Definition branch experience yourself in this exciting demo, which can also be found on the Branch Repeater demo page of Citrix.com.

I used the "cloud" to search for the "cloud" and found out that the company who defined the "cloud" was the company I used to search the "cloud". What an amazing thing... this Cloud!

Isn't the Internet grand! I wondered where the term Cloud Computing originated so I just opened up a browser and did a Google search "Inventing the term Cloud Computing". I was directed to a site called elstasticvapor.com. In an article by the purveyer of the site, he quotes another blogger who asked the question "who coined the term Cloud Computing" and at least one answer that came back was, 'Eric Schmidt in a 2006 interview when describing Google's SaaS model'. When you dig into the press release from Google, http://www.google.com/press/podium/ses2006.html, you'll find that indeed Eric mentions the term at least twice during an interview back in 2006.

In an excerpt from that interview, Eric describes the services of the future as follows, "What's interesting [now] is that there is an emergent new model, and you all are here because you are part of that new model. I don't think people have really understood how big this opportunity really is. It starts with the premise that the data services and architecture should be on servers. We call it cloud computing - they should be in a "cloud" somewhere. And that if you have the right kind of browser or the right kind of access, it doesn't matter whether you have a PC or a Mac or a mobile phone or a BlackBerry or what have you - or new devices still to be developed - you can get access to the cloud." That really sounds pretty straight forward.

Back in 1985 when I was a regional administrator for part of the ARPANET (whoops I just revealed my age), we knew that the Internet was nothing more than a collection of servers and routers which were designed to enable a best effort service with multiple paths of redundancy. And despite what Al Gore says, it was invented by the DoD. What started as a science project became so prolifically used that we (all) started to refer to it as the "Cloud" twenty years ago.

So what is it today that has the world in such a tizzy about the terminology Cloud Computing? Is it because a powerhouse like Eric Schmidt from a powerhouse company like Google used it three years ago in a time when Google was setting the Internet world on fire? Or is it that we've somehow convoluted the message in such a way as to distort its meaning... Something so esoteric that only the elite in the industry can comprehend its meaning? But note the brilliance and simplicity of what Eric Schmidt actually said, "if you have the right kind of browser OR the right kind of access, it doesn't matter [what kind of device you have]..." meaning the methodology doesn't matter as much as the result. That's why there are emerging types of methods to accomplish the same task, namely ACCESS to applications that reside somewhere other than the local PC! That is what Information Technology should be focused on today. Not a bunch of hype that has no practical outcome.

Cloud Computing is branching out into many things. That's why we see terminology like "Internal Cloud" and "Elastic Cloud" and "Cloud Bursting" but all stem from the same basic premise. The core of the Cloud IS the Internet. The result of Cloud Computing is a more universal access to applications. If you want to make money (or save money) by implementing Cloud Computing then you need to figure out how to give access to the users who want it and then determine the method for making it happen. Use the Internet... Yes, but don't limit the possibilities because of misconceptions. Find a way to deliver applications by loosely coupling the application and the local device.

Map out what you want to have happen and then design an architecture that meets the needs. Don't get caught in the hype. Use your head and basic networking principals and soon you will find that you are harnessing the power of the Cloud and not being overrun by it.

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Have you ever wished your VPN connection was faster?
Do you need to take a lunch break when downloading your sales presentation over your VPN?

Did you know that you can Turbo Charge Access Gateway with Citrix Branch Repeater and make these headaches go away? Citrix Branch Repeater can accelerate all editions of Access Gateway by adding Branch Repeater to your Citrix Delivery Center environment. The Citrix Repeater and Access Gateway Plug-ins seamlessly deliver the fastest secure access solution. Granular Access Gateway policies enable the IT Administrator to fine tune when and how a user's connection is turbo charged.

Learn more about Turbo Charging Access Gateway; how the components are deployed, and see the Turbo Charge experience yourself in this exciting demo. View the video in full size and learn more about Access Gateway here.

Analysts and technology companies alike have been attempting to describe the totality of Cloud Computing in terms of technology and business application.  The problem to date is that there has not been a single company who is both actively creating applications as well as producing the infrastructure and delivery mechanisms to deliver applications in the Cloud.  I usually don't promote Citrix right up front in my blogs, but in this case, Citrix is the core of the discussion in that we are the only company in the world today that plays across the entire spectrum of the Cloud.  I'd like to start with a basic picture to depict this strength and then describe each area. 

The Cloud can be described in these vertical planes by generalizing between Services and Infrastructure.  Along the horizontal plane the spectrum of the Cloud stretches from the software companies producing the applications (Independent Software Vendors - ISV) to the ultimate utility infrastructure for architectures with a foundation of servers which are virtualized.  The core product families at Citrix not only fit this paradigm, but by definition are core to the way in which Cloud Computing is developed and delivered.

Note first of all that without applications the cloud has no purpose.  The spectrum starts with the ISV.  Citrix Online's core technology and business proposition is rooted firmly in the ISV and SaaS portions of the cloud (http://www.citrixonline.com/products.tmpl?SessionInfo=20196379:BC688DECBA73756).  In fact, Online is actually the 5^th largest SaaS supplier in the world.  This gives us a keen understanding of what it takes to produce applications and deliver them to millions of subscribers around the world through a subscription model.

Next, Citrix has designed an application delivery technology used by 98% of the Fortune 500 companies around the world, XenApp.  Huge companies like Bechtel looking for ways in which to change the way they do business are adopting a variant of SaaS through what they call the Project Services Network producing an "on demand environment for application and data access" (http://web.citrix.com/go/synergy_08/vote/). And because the base software has been designed to work in these complex environments it shouldn't be surprising that Citrix also is the world leader in the delivery of applications embedded with high end graphics. (http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/derekt/2009/02/06/New+Multimedia+Capabilities+%28and+more+to+come%29).

Recognizing the need for entire desktop virtualization, XenDesktop is rapidly becoming the Desktop as a Service choice for many companies looking to augment their current application delivery approach.  Citrix leads the market in the flexibility of the DaaS through the latest release of the XenDesktop product.  My friend and colleague, Simon Crosby recently spoke on the topic and our future plans in this space in an interview with Doug Brown (http://www.dabcc.com/multimedia.aspx).

Moving to the far right of the spectrum we know that eventually the delivery of software will have to follow a utility model closely related to the Telco in order to be available to the mass market consumer.  So in an effort to begin to bridge that gap, Citrix has begun work in what is called the Elastic Compute Cloud or EC2 (http://community.citrix.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=58196960&showComments=true#comments).  In this environment, Citrix has demonstrated a future view of what will be Infrastructure as a Service using XenServer and the Xen Hypervisor as the core technology.

Finally, NetScaler has been a critical element of the Cloud for a number of years.  Providing web application acceleration and network optimization, this is a core technology to enable the infrastructure that delivers the applications through the Cloud.

I challenge anyone who thinks they know of a company better aligned with all aspects of Cloud Computing and has not only the vision for the future of application delivery, but a business model and technology today to actually deploy it and allow customers to produce revenues from it.  Look for an upcoming Podcast hosted by Doug Brown including discussion from Brad Pedersen and Kurt Moody to round out this discussion (http://www.dabcc.com/multimedia.aspx).

The following trademarks appear in this blog: Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows are a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and other countries, SAP is a registered trademark of SAP Corporation in the U.S. and in other countries, Firefox is a registered trademark of Mozilla, an Internet Community, Safari is a registered trademark of Apple Inc in the U.S. and other countries. 

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Why is it that we become so polarized when it comes to Information Technology?  "I'm a Mac guy!-I'm a PC guy! Linux is the only way! iPhone vs. Blackberry, you must be kidding! Win Server 2003 vs. Win Server2008!  Web apps are the only way!"  I know it's good to have opposing views and diversity is the foundation of change, but polarizing to any extreme just doesn't map with reality, does it?

Ten years ago the polarization around web based applications began.  Adobe is probably the best example of how this technology has emerged.  There was a day when loading someone's client on your PC or laptop was seen as obtrusive and even a security risk.  But now we are constantly reminded to upgrade our Flash player or we won't be able to access the latest multimedia.  To be sure, web app technology including Flash have come a long way and have enhanced our ability to get the information we need more rapidly.  But when I sit down to put a spreadsheet together chances are I'm not going to launch IE or Firefox to get started.  There is a job for every tool and a tool for most every job.  That's what my grandfather used to tell me and I think it applies to the world of IT as well.  In that regard, if we postulate that Google Apps is going to take over the world of application delivery any time soon, I think time will tell a different story.  But just to round out the playing field I'd like to examine some of the misnomers around a web app only world.

First and foremost there is the issue of what works best for the job.  As I mentioned, like it or not, Microsoft Excel owns the lion's share of the spreadsheet market by leaps and bounds.  Even if there were another application with a more user friendly experience the typical consumer of this application would still adopt what he knows (learned behavior) over what is new. So if a "universal" web app emerged tomorrow it would take years to get mass market adoption.  And even if that were to happen, we would still have to the issues of file storage and file sharing to contend with.  The point is the information technology world we live and work in takes advantage of both O/S dependent applications and web/browser based applications. 

But what if overnight, we all just decided enough is enough and we want to simplify the world of IT by only using web based applications?  Are they universal enough that every application would run on every end point every time it was accessed?  Let's explore...

Leaving aside the problem of learned behavior for O/S dependant applications, web based apps have a myriad of obstacles to overcome.  First are the physical machine and the physical network limitations.  Have you ever tried to stream a high definition video on a 5 year old PC (or MAC) on a dial-up network?  Even if you increased the bandwidth to Business Class DSL/Cable Modem you'd have to shut down every other web app just to get the clip running.  So there is first the problem of embedded multi-media over low bandwidth/high latency networks.  Surely everyone has access to 100 mbps Ethernet, don't they?  No, in fact they don't.  Most of the SMB world still lives off of a connection of 3-6 mbps with no specified SLA and that bandwidth is shared for the entire office.According to Kurt Moody, Senior Technical Marketing Manager at Citrix, "The development of web-based applications has been perceived as a fundamental competitor to traditional Windows desktop applications and therefore to some extent is considered the largest competitive threat to Citrix XenApp.  The reality for many enterprises is that although the web based applications themselves present a form of Server-based computing from an application development perspective, from an application delivery perspective the critical potential point of failure is the web browser itself, which in many cases is a Windows desktop application that presents the same version and lifecycle maintenance challenges of other desktop applications.  Many businesses have determined that using Citrix XenApp to deliver the required Web Browser and application presents a much more predictable environment to the broadest set of users and use cases with a lower TCO."  Not that XenApp solves all of the problems listed above, but it still provides the best case user experience even over low bandwidth, high latency networks.

How about the browser environment itself?  According to David Wagner, Architect and Product Manager at Citrix, "While it is easy to make the argument that the complexity and headaches that exist across multiple browsers has diminished somewhat over that last few years, there are still plenty of pain points this creates for all of us.  Challenges such as a browser version or needed plug-ins still occur particularly when using shared or common devices.  Sure if it is your personal PC or your company's laptop or desktop it is often easy enough to add what you need but what if you are using a hotel device?  Or a public venue kiosk?  Or some mobile device?  Making any change or modification at all is just not going to happen.

From a developer's point of view, wouldn't it be nice to focus on one or two browsers?  And maybe just a handful of configurations?  It would be if you were sure all your users had access to that version and configuration setup.  Otherwise you will be developing, testing and validating for every combination you can expect a user to leverage which usually means picking as many as you can manage to test and validate with each release and thus we have our published 'supported list'.  E.g. if you are trying to use this app and are experiencing issues and you are not using a configuration on the supported list we can't help you."

So what exactly do the Cloud initiatives of 2009 present to mitigate these web application issues?  Nothing really.  The Cloud is a mechanism for providing utility in the mass delivery of applications, not the end-all, be-all.  Even when Cloud delivery infrastructure becomes a reality, we still have these fundamental issues to grapple with.  That's why Citrix is taking the more holistic approach to the entire eco system.  From the creation of web based apps (Citrix Online products) to the virtualization of workloads in the datacenter (XenServer) to the delivery of both web and non-web applications (XenApp/XenDesktop) we provide the architecture to economically and efficiently provide services (applications) to the end points.... And we've been doing it for years. 

Stay tuned for the next discussion on Managed Service Providers vs. Independent Software Vendors providing SaaS.

I'm kind of a stickler for simplification so I always like to set the stage by making sure terms are defined and understood before launching into a diatribe of alphabet soup over acronyms that mean ten different things to ten different people.  For instance, it seems today (much like the era of the dot-com) that if someone drops the suffix "aaS" at the end of a subject or object it immediately becomes newsworthy.  For instance a statement like MSPs who provide SaaS or DaaS must use either AIaaS or APaaS to achieve true IaaS, is in my opinion condescending.  It's kind of like using the word Grok.  If you don't know what it means, then you must not be educated enough to use it.  Do you grok SaaS?

These kinds of acronyms and esoteric terms only confuse the poor guy who is trying to make a decision about how to run his business more cost effectively.  The small business owner is still trying to figure out what an "XP Pro" is or why there is so much hype over Vista vs. OS 10 (PC Guy vs. Apple Guy).  And the more software/computer science literate business owner wants to know why he has to pay for an entire staff of guys to keep his PCs running when he could do it all himself if he only had the time.  In either case, especially in this economy, at the end of the day it's all about the bottom line in business. Techno jargon is meaningless if it has no bearing on profitability. For these business owners if it costs less to do business by outsourcing part of the business, that's exactly what they are going to do.  But the message better be simple as to how they go about it.  So whether or not the small or medium sized business (SMB) owner can decipher Managed Service Providers (MSPs) who provide Software as a Service (SaaS) or Desktops as a Service (DaaS) must use either Application Infrastructure as a Service (AIaaS) or Application Platforms as a Service (APaaS) to achieve true Integration as a Service (IaaS), doesn't mean a hill of beans if it doesn't help his bottom line.  What is really important is for the MSP to quickly articulate his value proposition to the SMB owner so that there is no question about the service provided and its relative value to the business.  To start, according to Wikipedia, Software as a Service "is a model of software deployment where an application is hosted as a service provided to customers across the Internet. By eliminating the need to install and run the application on the customer's own computer, SaaS alleviates the customer's burden of software maintenance, ongoing operation, and support."  Now that's pretty understandable even for the guy who doesn't know what an XP Pro is.

Even with this distinction however there are still different types of MSPs who provide services for a variety of different use cases.  For simplicity sake, I'll describe three variants of MSPs here but by no means does this exhaust the category.  First there is the purist MSP.  That is to say the service provider who sets up one application to be shared by hundreds or thousands of businesses for a one-to-many implementation.  On the other end of the spectrum, is the service provider who transfers an entire data center from an SMB and hosts the "custom" one-to-one environment.  The later obviously has a scaling issue in that each physical server farm must stand on its own for each individual SMB.  In between these extremes is the MSP who has a "generic" server farm (which may or may not be virtual) used to deliver applications, but not necessarily built to scale.  In this case, the SMB may have a set number of applications he wishes to have hosted, but not all applications.  Sometimes these applications are problematic and may be difficult to deliver to remote sites.  Or they may be cumbersome to manage and therefore cause an inordinate amount of time and energy for the local IT personnel.  In some cases this hybrid hoster may provide an entire environment for a specific niche.

One such hybrid is a company called AcXess Inc, http://www.acxess.com/AcXess_home.htm in Boca Raton, Florida.  AcXess is the developer of V-Works™ a new Platform for managing online Virtual Server Environments. Their services include Labs On-Demand™ for integration and consulting projects, Demos On-Demand™ for automated "live" software demonstrations and Desktops On-Demand™ for Hi-Performance remote access desktops and applications.  By focusing on the ability to host lab environments and demonstrations, this MSP has built a business with unique value to a variety of customers including Microsoft, AT&T and SAP.  Tom Elowson, CEO is no neophyte when it comes to hosted services.  He was actually one of the principals in an ASP company in 2000.  Learning from the rise and fall of that era, Tom started AcXess and a couple of other companies to take advantage of the emerging hosted services market.  His business is actually seeing growth even in these tough times, which is no surprise according to a recent article written by Scott Campbell at ChannelWeb, entitled "Study: MSPs Bucking Poor Economy", http://www.crn.com/managed-services/212902884.  The article states, "Managed service providers expect their revenue to increase by 20 percent over the next 12 months, according to a new study by research firm AMI-Partners. The study found that MSPs are being spared the impact of the downturn, and in fact may owe some success to the economy, as more businesses look to streamline IT costs through managed services."

So when it's all said and done, alphabet soup isn't where the money is... it's in the services that the SMBs are looking for.... And did I mention that AcXess uses Citrix products to power their hosted infrastructure.  Yep, they do!

The web apps are coming, the web apps are coming!  This has been the mantra in the Internet space for years now.  And the truth of the matter is that yes, the web apps are coming.  In fact, there are hundreds, if not thousands already deployed.  Many of which were designed specifically for browser based technology and are used by the masses every day.  YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace are entrenched as the debutants of social networking with applications like Twitter on the quick road to mass adoption.  In the business world, Saleforce.com is the clear leader in CRM while products like Microsoft Live, Cisco TelePresence and Citrix Online top the list for web conferencing and team collaboration.

And then there are those applications that have a dedicated connection to their original designs which are not browser based.  Intuit and SAP are two companies that come to mind. Giants in their own right, they have yet to cross the chasm from Operating System dependency to fully web enabled delivery.  To be sure, both of these companies have products in the browser space, but the bulk of their revenues still come from non web enabled applications.  The challenge for these companies (and hundreds like them) as well as the opportunity is in their ability to quickly expand their license penetration and hold the cost of doing business down.  Enter Virtualization and subscription services.

Citrix is the best kept secret in the web space from a software delivery perspective.  Many ISVs don't think to offer their products through Citrix server based computing technology mainly because there is no association between what SBC is and how an ISV sells to their customer.  Or at least that has been the problem in the past.  Now, Amazon is creating the Elastic Compute Cloud (or EC2) and the ability to offer data center functionality using the utility company model.  Pay as you go and only pay for as much (data center) as you use.  So imagine taking an existing model today for data centralization in the large enterprise, transfer the architecture to an uber-data center in the Cloud and offer software applications through a (virtually) secure, (virtually) redundant network.  And voila, a new age is born in which any here-to-for O/S dependant applications can be run on any desktop in any location by simply using a virtual environment to get it there.  Sounds pretty futuristic, huh?  Well, it is and it isn't.  It's futuristic in the sense that it hasn't been proven from a mass adoption perspective.  But then again, thirty years ago no one ever imagined driving down the road with a wireless connection to a head set which allowed voice communications (aka the cell phone) to emerge as a mass market delivery network either.

But what about today?  Is it possible to host applications that are not web based and serve them up to a mass market?  Wanna know another well kept secret?  The answer is YES.  If you don't believe me just take a look at the following web site, http://www.microsoft.com/hosting/findahostingprovider.mspx. In here you will see that Microsoft has not only embraced the concept of hosting applications that were not originally designed for web delivery, but support an entire network of hosting providers who generate income from these services.  What's even more surprising is they have been doing it for over 7 years... long before the term Software as a Service was dreamed up.

And are there really hosted service providers providing Software as a Service outside of the Salesforce.com hype?  Yep!  They are right in your backyard most of the time.  In fact several of them are already a part of the Citrix Partner Program and the focus of their business is in hosting applications.  One in particular, a company called Nasstar ( http://www.nasstar.com/) is taking the concept to the next level in the way in which they offer up an application delivery model to the SMB.  Charles Black, CEO of Nasstar had a vision that the mass market SMB would not only accept this paradigm of subscription based software applications, but would generate enough revenue to substantiate an ongoing business concern.  That was five years ago.  Now Nasstar is thriving and growing the business of subscription based software delivery (or SaaS) utilizing products like XenApp in their infrastructure.  I had a call with Charles today and he underscored the SaaS model saying, "Citrix is indeed a pioneer in this space.  [Our approach is] Citrix powered desktop and application delivery for the SMB and XenApp is the delivery platform." Futuristic?  Not anymore.

A pivotal part of Project Independence is the technology at its core.  An obvious choice for Citrix, and many other virtualization companies, is to select the Xen open-source technology as the basis for a bare-metal hypervisor.  The wonderful thing about having Xen at the core of the hypervisor is that Citrix,  undeniably the experts in Xen, has teamed with Intel, undeniably the experts in hardware virtualization, to build the core client hypervisor.  This is the best recipe for success that I've ever seen.

The Intel and Citrix collaboration, known as Thunder Lake, is  a joint program intended to bring many proven server based virtualization technologies to Intel vPro client desktops and laptops.  At the heart of the Citrix client hypervisor is open source Xen with its architecture that is uniquely designed to ensure strong isolation between VMs running on a single device.  Several key Intel technologies like VTx, VTd, TXT, and TPM will be leveraged by the Xen hypervisor such that Citrix products and technologies can bring features previously found only on server based solutions to the client platform with full local execution.  For example, since Xen is the most up to date technology using Intel's VTd hardware, it is well suited to pass through device control directly to the client in a way that doesn't impact security.  Hypervisor features like Xen's support for VTd will solve some very tough problems for client virtualization.

A key requirement for a client hypervisor is a seamless user experience.  This is one of the main differences from a server-based hypervisor.  To accomplish this, hardware devices like Graphics and USB perform just like they do today but now on a platform running multiple VMs - all this without compromising security.  On the Xen client hypervisor you will get full 3D graphics, including Vista Aero, all the while maintaining full isolation between VM's.  This ensures that the corporate applications and desktops are safe from vulnerabilities that could copy your display and keystrokes.      

Today, Xen offers excellent isolation between VMs.  With our new client hypervisor, security will be enhanced even beyond today's standards.  By incorporating encryption and support for Intel's TXT technologies the Citrix client hypervisor will check and measure the boot process.  Now data and OS are safe even if client platform has been compromised by removing the disk.

The exciting thing for us at Citrix is that Project Independence along with the Intel joint collaboration project will bring leading edge hardware and software technologies together for the distinct purpose of providing a better end user experience and better security.  For years it seems an improvement in security meant a decrease in user experience or performance.  More than ever most of us are PC users and soon we will be able to own and control our Desktop and therefore be in control of our experience and productivity.

 Matt

Software as a Service.  Sounds like it would be a pretty easy concept to understand.  But when we look under the hood we find that there are three differing perspectives. 

At a hundred thousand feet SaaS is a buzz word for Wall Street and investors to get excited over.  It is the intersection of off premise hardware managed by others at a location (either virtual or physical) with dedicated resources which may also be a part of the larger Internet Cloud which combines Web Hosting with shared applications.  Wow!  That's a mouthful.  No wonder so many tech savvy analysts are so excited about it.  There are enough "high hit" Google terms there to start a search engine frenzy.

The investment community represents the first of three perspectives for SaaS.  Trying to predict what the future will hold and which companies have the technology to capture more customer wallet share in the ever growing information age.  The view from this perspective is about the value of software.  Specifically will software continue to hold its value and thus hold up the value of those Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) who produce it?

The second perspective is that of the software industry itself.  The opportunity is with those software companies who are blessed with no legacy code and have built their product for a distribution that takes advantage of the open Internet.  From this perspective the sky is the limit and exposure or awareness of the product is the key to attracting revenues from the mass market.  On the other hand ISVs who have invested millions of dollars in their code base and it has evolved from dedicated operating systems are not so lucky.  From their perspective SaaS could be the next crushing blow that renders their code obsolete.

Lastly we have to look at the guy who pays the bill.  The end user and for the purpose of this article, I'm going to limit that to the small and medium business.  After all, if the SMB actually makes up 80% of the total number of end points in the world, one would think that this is the most important segment to address, right?  From their perspective, SaaS doesn't matter.  All they want to know is, "how am I going to get my software applications running without an IT staff or with limited IT capabilities".  In fact if Geek Squad could figure out a way to supply physical services to every small business in the universe and manage applications on-the-fly, this would be the definition an SMB would use for Software as a Service.

If we start from the guy who pays the bills, the world of SaaS looks something like this.  A simple, secure and cost effective way to access applications and data from any device in any location.  Some ISVs understand this definition and are becoming wildly successful, because they understand the first order of business is satisfying the end customer's needs.  After all, he is paying the bill.  In the world of communication and collaboration we see products such as GoToMeeting and Microsoft Live.  The hard truth is that these products sell the best by circumventing the current IT professionals.  They are completely end user focused, have a specific use and are easily accessed from any device in any location.  In the world of Customer Relationship Management, Salesforce.com is the 800 lb gorilla.  Once again, simple to use and accessible.

But what of the thousands of applications that were built specifically for the desktop or dedicated server Operating Systems?  Are these guys just out of luck?  Will the millions of users who currently use these products suddenly stop and go to their web application cousin created by these new and emerging software vendors?  Maybe.  Eventually.  But not tomorrow.  Not in a year and maybe not for the next 5-10 years.  There are a hundred reasons why this is true.  The most compelling is risk and reliability.  The mass market by definition is not a part of early adoption.  In fact, according to Geoffrey Moore, we have an entire chasm to cross before there is mass market adoption of something as disruptive as a web app only business model.  If this were not the case, Google would be the name on your phone bill today instead of AT&T, everyone would be driving a Prius and Cable TV would have been killed by IPTV.  But these things take time and what is needed is a way to bridge the gap.

Most people in the IT industry don't think of Citrix as a mass market product company.  And since SaaS is typically associated with the mass market, don't think of Citrix playing well in this space.  That's because we have spent the bulk of our sales expertise and adoption in the large enterprise market.  Why?  Because it has taken 20 years to cross the chasm of server based computing for the mass market.  But what most people don't realize is that Citrix started out by creating products designed for low bandwidth, high latency, and low power CPU environments.  These are the basic tenants of the mass market.  Our core product, XenApp has only been enhanced for these tenants over the past 20 years.  That's why we have deployments of up to 50,000 end points within our current customer base.  No one else in the world has this type of delivery system to match the needs of the end user in the mass market for the thousands of applications that are not web based.  So as ISVs continue to look at the mounting problem of servicing the end customer in the SMB segment, Citrix will provide a simple, elegant solution to the perspective of the guy who is paying the bill... A simple, secure and cost effective way to access applications and data from any device in any location.

I wouldn't be surprised if Citrix is seen in a new light over the next couple of years.  After all, we can bridge the gap that crosses the chasm.

Twitter

According to Wikipedia a Cloud is "A visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals floating in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth". It is amorphous and very loosely structured. A Cloud has no specific strength, organization or output. A hurricane on the other hand is "a storm system characterized by a low pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and flooding rain". A hurricane is organized, has form, purpose and an outcome. The center or eye of the hurricane is where the system is the most powerful and at the same time the calmest portion of the system.

Cloud Computing is interestingly fraught with the same issues of its vapor filled synonym. It is amorphous and lacks specific direction from a business perspective. It promises a world of flexibility and responsiveness, but little is said about its' form, organization, power and ability to generate an outcome, namely productivity and efficiency for revenue generation. Cloud Computing has been given an inordinate amount of power through press and hype, as though it were in fact a hurricane and not just a formless blob of vapor. But if it is truly a hurricane, what form does it have, what direction is it going and where is its power center? Who will pay for the "Cloud"? What is the model that produces enough inertia to keep it going and make money with it? The answer is simple. Applications!

What most experts neglect to write about in the dawning of this new age called Cloud Computing is its distant and ugly cousin, Applications Services. Why? Because it is so painful to recall the disastrous outcomes of the ASPs of 1999-2000. But if we don't scrutinize and learn from the past, how will we succeed by simply changing the taxonomy. The revenue generating end of the Cloud is applications and Software as a Service is the platform by which these applications will be delivered.

So much has changed since the Application Services model first came on the scene 10 years ago. Bandwidth is cheaper, web applications have evolved (or have they?), security is much better, and the virtualization of data centers is becoming common place. Hosting providers have become much savvier and have carved niches out to produce revenues. How? Through the efficient delivery of applications or Software as a Service. The golden child in this space is Salesforce.com for CRM, but what about the 2,000+ hosting providers in North America alone who service the SMB? In many cases these hosting providers supply the same applications that failed so miserably in 2000. What's changed? A model that now allows flexibility of application delivery to the end point in a secure, efficient way AND a mass of customers willing to pay for it.

So if SaaS is a growing market (most analysts believe it is now $3-5 Billion for the SMB with a CAGR of 20 %+), where is all of this money coming from? In this current economy Small and Mid-sized companies are looking for every possible way to save a buck. They are using SaaS to minimize operating expenses that used to be a part of their every day processes. But even in the best of economic times, using SaaS provides a huge amount of flexibility and is great for cash flow. In one survey, over 70% of the SMB respondents reported SaaS is helping them to lower overall costs and increasing their speed of implementation and delivery of applications. These are two killer assets especially given the current economic situation. No wonder this is a growth market in a declining economy.

Citrix is addressing the entire spectrum of the Cloud. From Infrastructure as a Service (XenServer) to Desktop as a Service (XenDesktop) through application delivery providing Software as a Service (XenApp). This approach goes beyond theory to the basic elements of revenue generation. The very core technology of XenApp, for instance, is based on the concept that software should be 'delivered' as a service, not deployed. As the market continues to evolve, Citrix will emerge as a leader in this space because we had it in mind twenty years ago when we began to evolve server based computing.

The hurricane is where Citrix is focused, not just the Cloud and we already have the technology to power a significant revenue generating engine for which service providers will gain efficiency and bottom line cost savings. Citrix XenApp provides the infrastructure for Hosting Service Providers to more efficiently generate revenues from the delivery of applications... in the eye of the "Cloud" storm.

This is the first in a series of topics regarding Software as a Service and the growing need to develop virtual application delivery platforms to meet the demand of this quickly growing market place. Topics include 'SaaS - What is it really?', 'Is there room for Virtualization of applications in the Cloud', 'Are all Hosting/Managed Services Providers the same?', 'Web Apps - Are they universal?', 'Is SaaS for Hosted/Managed Services Providers or for ISVs?', 'What is the role of an SI in SaaS', 'Where are the Telcos?', 'What is Citrix doing in SaaS?'

Key contributors to this series will include Brad Pedersen (Chief Architect and Senior Fellow), Juliano Maldaner (Senior Architect), David Wagner (Principal Product Manager) and Kurt Moody (Senior Manager).

Twitter

The Ideal XenApp User Experience - A few years back our usability and design teams started a comprehensive research project aimed at crafting the ideal user experience for XenApp. The results were not at all encouraging for Program Neighborhood. It turns out that the best thing we could do is to become invisible. Users want to get to their Apps so they can get work done. Our mission became to focus on a completely transparent user experience. Launching a XenApp delivered application should be like, or better then, launching a locally installed application. The new XenApp Plugin coupled with the Citrix Receiver and some core changes to XenApp around the way we launch applications are all under active development and are instrumental to helping us achieve this vision. Unfortunately there is no room, or need, for Program Neighborhood is this new model.

The XenApp Plugin - is designed to seamlessly integrate XenApp into the users environment. It does this by placing XenApp delivered shortcuts directly into the users StartMenu. These shortcuts are standard windows shortcuts and can be manipulated by the users in the same way. They can be copied on to the users desktop, or into their quicklaunch bar, etc ... (See my video demo of this) The important point is that there is no special training involved, no additional program to launch and, in fact, no need for the user to know that the App is any different than other apps they use. 
Some advanced answers to anticipated questions.

1: Are there additional requirements for the XA Plugin above and beyond what I need for Program Neighborhood?
    * Yes. The XA Plugin requires the XenApp Web Interface Service to provide the web services that drive the user experience. If you already have Web Interface in your XenApp farm it's simply a matter of creating an additional XenApp Services site on your WI Server.

2: When is this happening?
    * Program Neighborhood will not be one of the Plugins offered in the componentized client that we are planning to release in late 2009.

3: I use Program Neighborhood as a diagnostic tool to connect directly to a Server. Will I still have this ability in the new Plugin?
    * Probably. We are looking at options to provide similar functionality in the new client model. It may be a separate Plugin, a feature of the XenApp Plugin or something else.

Since it's inception in 1996 with the first release of WinFrame the "ICA Client" has been on a continuous improvement cycle. As WinFrame grew and evolved into XenApp the client grew and evolved right along with it. As you can imagine the client portion of XenApp that runs on every users device has been a fertile ground for integration and feature enhancement. Over the past 13 years we have added support for all sorts of client facilities like the clipboard, local drives, serial and parallel ports, printers, multiple monitors, etc ... And we have rarely and reluctantly ever dropped or "deprecated" any features or support. E.g. We have only recently dropped support for "Windows NT 4.0 Workstation" years after Microsoft had ended their support. For the most part this strategy has been pivotal to the success of XenApp. Many of our customers have used XenApp to maximize their investment in desktop hardware by delaying the endless death march of the continuous and costly desktop refresh cycle. However, it's time for change. The latest release of the client has swelled to over 3 million lines of code (which is a lot, trust me) and the test matrix has grown to the point where we spend a great deal of effort every release just on maintenance and testing alone. This, of course, makes it very difficult to be as responsive as we would like to the needs of our customers and our business.

So what are we are doing about it?

1: We are introducing a new client strategy that revolves around what we are calling the "Citrix Receiver". The Receiver is all about simplifying and enhancing the user experience. The Receiver achieves this in many ways but most germane to this discussion is it's ability to hide complexity from the users and make the Administrators job of managing and updating the client easier.

2: We are modularizing the client. Breaking the client into smaller more manageable pieces allows us the ability to be more granular with our changes and enhancements and more flexible in our release schedules.

For example the "XenApp Plugin for Hosted Apps" will break down into three smaller Plugins:

• The Hosting Engine - Responsible for all of the heavy lifting associated with the delivery of Hosted Apps and Desktops.
• SingleSignOn - Responsible for passthrough authentication from a domain joined client.
• XenApp User Experience - Responsible for managing the integration of XenApp into the users environment.

* These Plugins will be on independent release schedules and are delivered by the Citrix Receiver as necessary.

What's the upside?

•  The Receiver is the last Citrix client you will ever need to install - The Receiver has a premise based Server component that will act as staging area and control facility for propagating Plugin updates out to the end users. The receiver will periodically check the Server for updates and, provided you allow it, will update with the newer Plugins as they become available.

•    More frequent release of enhancements - Plugins will be released independently and on their own schedules meaning we'll be able to bring enhancements to market when they are ready without having to wait for a periodic client release.

•    More granular control over what gets installed on the clients - Administrators will be able to control which users get which Plugins and when.

* Note: A standalone Plugins Pack will be made available for those who would like to continue to manage their client updates with existing methods.

What's the downside?

In order to make room for these changes we need to remove\deprecate some of our legacy features:

1: Thinwire 1 - Thinwire 1 is a low-level graphics virtual channel that was replaced by Thinwire 2 back in MetaFrame 1.8 FR1 (August 2000). Removing TW1 from the Windows client means that you won't be able to connect to a MetaFrame 1.8 Server with the newer client. See, I told you we were reluctant to remove anything.

2: Program Neighborhood --Program Neighborhood has been around since the early days of WinFrame. PN is a launch pad for XenApp Applications. When launched it connects with the XenApp Server and lists the Apps that are available for the user. PN was effectively replaced by PNAgent (Now the XenApp User Experience Plugin), which provides the same functionality with a far superior interface by integrating the XenApp delivered Apps transparently into the users Desktop. We removed PN from an active enhancement path several generations ago but we've been keeping it alive in maintenance mode to give our customers time to move on to the newer and better XenApp Plugin. There is more to the story but I think I'll post that as a separate Blog entry.

Some advanced answers to anticipated questions.

1: When is this all happening?
    * Citrix receiver will first become available in late Q109 with the componentization of the client available late in the year, probably somewhere in the middle of the second half.

2: Will there be separate Receivers for XenApp and XenDesktop?
    * No. There will be one "Citrix Receiver" that will deliver Apps and\or Desktops depending on which Plugins are installed and active.

3: Will I be able to control, which Plugins are installed?
    * Yes. The Citrix Receiver will provide Administrator control over which Plugins are installed on which machines.

4: How many Plugin Packs will there be?
    * Two. We are trying to keep this simple. There will be one pack with all of the Plugins and another one designed to be more lightweight for more streamlined deployments.

5: What if I want more granular control over the Plugins?
    * We strongly encourage customers requiring granular control to use the Receiver but the Packs will allow for context switches that will toggle the install of specific Plugins. I.e. "CitrixReceiverPluginPack.exe /No USB"

     
In my last post, I discussed the new look and feel for our Access Gateway user experience.   Most of the focus was about the consistency of user experience across Citrix Delivery Center.   Well, the WANScaler product team has done the same with the Accelerator client plug-in. The Accelerator desktop icon is pretty cool...



The real value of Accelerator is that it makes things go faster (hence the name, gotta love those creative marketing folks ).  

In my job, the biggest kick that I get with Accelerator is when I transfer files from my laptop to my V: drive on the network.   First pass on a big Powerpoint presentation download can take a couple of minutes across the world, but then after a few tweaks to the file, the upload  takes less than 10 seconds.  There is no way that I'll ever let someone take this away from me.  

The performance improvement is a result of Delta compression where only the changes are re-transmitted.  The running joke is that we'll improve this someday and call it Gamma compression.

The geek in me has fun opening the Accelerator Manager window and watching  the Performance page. The more light blue in the graph the better.  Here, it's making my home DSL line feel like I'm in the office on the LAN.

Accelerator integrates with the Access Gateway client so that you get the combined benefit of a fast and secure connection when you are remote.  Although, I run in this mode on our open wireless network when in the office as well. More on this some other time...

With the Accelerator icon running in my systray, I know that WANScaler and the Accelerator client plug-in are quietly working in the background to make my experience "LAN-like" everywhere I connect.

Go Fast!

Gordon  

I've had a great opportunity to travel the world this year and meet with a wide range of our customers and partners. I've been struck with the number of CIO's, IT Managers and Admin's who are consistent in their frustrations and questions around finding a better way to manage desktops. In one meeting with the IT team of a Japanese company with more than 100,000 employees, the CIO summarized this well with his comment, "We can't go on with the current desktop model as we need to reduce the overall cost of IT while continuing to deliver innovation to our businesses". I hear something similar to this in customers large and small across geographies and industries. This is a classic headache looking for aspirin IT challenge. The next part of the conversation generally turns into something like: "We know we have a problem, but how do we work our way out of this mess?".

VDI, What is all the fuss?

The cost and complexity of the current default model of: purchase personal computer's/laptop's, install standard operating environment, deploy with user, then patch/fix/secure & repeat is hitting the breaking point. Maybe this is just the edge of the pendulum swing between mainframe/dumb terminal to networked PC, but it's clear that there is a big "headache" today. Desktop Virtualization represents a new way forward that can be radically simpler than the current managed desktop model. The benefits of desktop virtualization are now within the reach of every organization. Customers deploying XenDesktop are seeing total cost of ownership per desktop reducing 10%-40% annually, time to value is pretty much instantaneous and information security is significantly increased.

After a recent customer event I had one IT manager ask me, "so for my 5,000 desktops I can use just one image of XP and manage 1 copy rather than 5,000? Wow, my management challenge just disappeared". With ah-ha moments like this, you can see why more and more organizations are making the move to centralized delivered desktops. The current economic headwind that businesses are facing is creating an opportunity for every company to take a look at current models and make large scale changes to emerge from this downturn in a stronger position. With this in mind here are a few principles and key points when considering Desktop Virtualization.

1) One size DOESN'T fit all

As we worked with customers to define and develop XenDesktop, we attacked the biggest pain point first -> the cost of delivering and managing desktops inside the company on the local area network. We partnered with a number of our hardware partners to build a new class of end user device called a Desktop Appliance - meeting a base level of capabilities to ensure a great user experience and options to increase capabilities over time. The Desktop Appliance combined with XenDesktop becomes the primary device for Office Workers and delivers a user experience better than a desktop PC.

Desktop virtualization can provide a user customized desktop for Office Workers; however it is an over-kill for task workers and does not address the needs of mobile workers. Task Workers include call center agents, retail clerks and shop floor workers, generally accessing a set of specific applications. A shared server based desktops (delivered by XenApp) combined with a traditional Thin Client device is the most secure and cost effective way to deliver applications to this group of users - 20 million task workers operate in this model every day. When you consider that a shared server can accommodate the needs to 300-400 users vs 30-50 virtual desktop users per server for VDI, the cost comparison is fairly straightforward. Mobile workers include sales execs, service personnel and executives who carry a laptop and need their applications with them on the road, both on and off the network. Application virtualization is the best solution for cutting down the cost of managing applications for mobile worker laptops. Citrix has a long history supporting mobile workers and now we have the only product, XenApp, that acts as a single application hub that can deliver line of business applications hosted from the data center and productivity applications like Microsoft Office streamed to run locally on the users laptop for offline use in locations like airplanes and at customer offices.

2) IAATHUX - It's All About the User Experience

I'm a virtual desktop (XenDesktop) user and it really is a fresh, personal & fast experience every time I log-in. My XenDesktop starts up faster than I can get a cup of coffee and absolutely screams when I launch and use applications throughout the day -> apps and data live close together on servers in the data center. Knowing there is no spinning hard drive or humming fans makes me feel good about reducing power and air conditioning in our offices. With anytime, secure remote access, I can work from home with my customized desktop when needed and not make unnecessary off-hours trips to the office. I have accessed my virtual desktop from all locations, broadband, our small regional sales offices, offshore during my international trips. With the EasyCall feature of XenDesktop set to make calls from the office, or the users cellphone or home telephone, I can be productive with voice and data access from anywhere - and see significant savings in my cellphone & telephone bills.

3) The Desktop: Just Another Datacenter Workload?

Server virtualization is primarily focused on the wringing efficiency from under-utilized servers. Virtualizing desktops, on the other hand, is more an end-to-end solution including servers, networks and client devices. Defining the desktop as Operating System + Applications + User Profiles is useful to highlight the key components. The dynamic assembly of these components and delivery as a service are critical to realize the cost advantages of desktop virtualization and improved user experience.

4) App Virtualization: Key to Succesful VDI

In much the same way that having a single copy of the operating system to be delivered to all users, application virtualization can deliver a single image of each application across a broad range of users. XenApp delivers applications on a hosted or streamed basis to virtual desktops (in addition to physical desktops). Keeping individual copies of applications for each user and maintaining these across users just doesn't make sense and destroys the cost benefits of desktop virtualization. Managing each application separately from the desktop image is the only way to make the virtual desktop projects cost effective.

5) Storage, storage and more storage - Why Storage is a Critical Factor

The first versions of early virtual desktop infrastructure seemed designed to increase IT's spend on back end storage. Virtualizing applications and managing them separately, as explained above, not only helps in cutting down the cost of desktop and application management but also becomes one of the key factors in reducing the storage requirements of the desktop images. In addition, this virtual desktop image along with applications should be dynamically assembled and provisioned into a virtual desktop on-demand at the time when a user logs on. XenDesktop has been architected to optimize storage requirements by dynamically assembling users' desktop at the time when they logon. The only unique storage required for each user is their profile and application data. This approach has unlocked the business case for Desktop Virtualization using any hypervisor - XenServer, Hyper-V or ESX.

6) Real distance, real networks

With the move to centralized data centers and more virtual workforces, the distance between users and their desktops and applications is increasing. Hence, the delivery of the virtual desktop is equally important regardless of where the end user is. Citrix has a long history with delivery applications over networks ranging from current high speed 1Gb networks with lots of bandwidth and low latency to the skinniest of networks with high latency and failure rates. Our larger customers operate with 10's of thousands of users operating across public and private networks built with wired and wireless network infrastructure from different network infrastructure vendors including Cisco, Juniper, Nortel and others. Since application and networking professionals have lots of hands on experience with Citrix traffic on their networks, we decided to have the same proven virtual delivery protocol, Citrix ICA, in both XenApp and XenDesktop.

7) Client Hypervisor - Fact vs. Fiction

Based on the strategy above, all task workers and office workers should have their desktops centrally hosted in the datacenter, enabling them to securely access their desktop from anywhere. For mobile workers, who need to work offline, I expect more innovation to come where IT can virtualize and stream full desktop images to laptops. Citrix is helping to make this a reality by working closely with the Xen.org, Xen Client Initiative (XCI) to create a fast and free embedded hypervisor for laptops, PC's and PDAs. XCI is an exciting and fast-moving initiative driven by all the biggest names in microprocessors, BIOS, PCs and laptop hardware. Because when it comes to client hypervisors, trying to build something proprietary and closed simply won't cut it. Anything that doesn't have broad, open and compatible implementation across the industry is likely to fail. An embedded client hypervisor will, of course, provide a foundation to deliver local virtual desktops. However, a client side hypervisor alone is not enough for IT to have a complete solution. At Citrix, we're working on a complete solution that integrates a client side hypervisor, application and desktop streaming, application and desktop hosting, and end user profile and context management - this complete solution will ensure that the mobile users can quickly get their personalized desktop and their applications available to them offline and IT can centrally manage the lifecycle of the desktop at lowest possible cost.

In our experience to date with XenDesktop in the market, I've been pleasantly surprised at both the level of interest and speed at which our customers are deploying virtual desktops. It seems that the headache with current desktop management crosses industries, geographies and customer size and that many of these organizations are reaching for the aspirin or already starting to breath a sigh of relief with their virtual desktops.

If you are interested in a third party evaluation of XenDesktop, check out this InfoWorld test by Paul Venezia:  http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/16/38TC-citrix-xendesktop_2.html

Gordon Payne,
Senior Vice President
Delivery Systems Division

XenApp and XenDesktop provide the means for users to access their Apps and Desktops from a wide variety of platforms and devices. At Citrix our vision is to create a world where anyone can work and play from anywhere. Mobility is not new to Citrix. There are XenApp clients available today for Windows Mobile and Symbian devices, but small form factor devices have had their challenges. Slow, unreliable wireless networks, small screens and awkward user input models have relegated hand held access to small and highly specialized market segments. But that's all about to change.

The latest generation of hand held devices with their large, high definition screens and the availability of high-speed wireless networks are changing the game in a big way! A hand held device such as an iphone connected to XenApp via a high-speed 3G network yields a remarkably usable experience.

While serious content creation might have to wait for an external keyboard and monitor, consuming content like reviewing a spreadsheet or a patients records and simple tasks like approving an expense report are quite frictionless. And because you're accessing your content via XenApp and XenDesktop your access is fast and reliable and you never need to worry about your valuable data being compromised if you misplace or loose your phone.

I've been fielding quite a few inquiries lately about our strategy and plans for the iPhone. I thought it was time to let everyone know where we are and where we're going. The guys on our Mac development team in Chalfont, UK have just recently finished porting the core XenApp engine over to the iPhone platform. This was a great deal of work and the guys have done a brilliant job.

As you can see, pretty cool, but we still have quite a bit of work to do. During the next stage of the project we will be crafting a user experience that provides a natural, transparent and effortless user interface in keeping with the high standards set by our friends at Apple.

It's tough to say at this stage when we would have something that we could share with you but I promise if you watch this space we will provide regular updates on our progress and schedules as they reveal themselves.

Its the continuous and enthusiastic feedback we have collected from you all that has helped get this project off the ground. If you haven't done so already please check out Chris Fleck's iPhone blog and cast your vote.

Al-

Citrix Usability Design and Evaluation Team manager Doug Bloch recently wrote "Some of the challenges facing the User Experience team are ensuring that our new acquisitions match the user's mental models of our mainstream Citrix Products". Citrix Systems is not alone in addressing this - it is an issue that is faced across the industry.

I had the opportunity to speak with other designers facing this challenge at the recent annual conference of the Usability Professionals' Association in Baltimore, Maryland. When posing the question "What strategy would you use to integrate look and feel throughout a product line that has been impacted by acquisitions?" the feedback flew fast and furious! (One industry expert suggested that our products need to look like they came from "One idea, one mind", hence the title of this blog post. )

The usability and customer experience design professionals I spoke with feel strongly about the question based on the nature of our profession. But some of their input, and conversations with my teammates leads me to ponder the question at a more critical and fundamental level - what do Citrix customers think?

-                Is it realistic to expect that a "suite" of products that have been created by a few or several different companies can come together under one look and feel?

-                Could the answer be "It Depends"?  For example, is it only important to the teams deploying the product? How much or how often are end users impacted?

-                Have you seen how other companies have handled this challenge?

-                What kind of roadblocks do you think that Citrix might have in addressing this issue - and what have you seen as best practices for overcoming those roadblocks?

Looking forward to hearing what you all have to say.

Is your organization aware of accessibility/508 requirements?

In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities. Inaccessible technology interferes with an individual's ability to obtain and use information quickly and easily. Section 508 was enacted to eliminate barriers in information technology, to make available new opportunities for people with disabilities, and to encourage development of technologies that will help achieve these goals. The law applies to all Federal agencies when they develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology. Under Section 508 (29 U.S.C. ' 794d), agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information that is comparable to the access available to others. It is recommended that you review the laws and regulations listed below to further your understanding about Section 508 and how you can support implementation.

So, for employees who have some degree of special needs, certain accommodations need to be designed into the product. A few examples are sticky keys, screen readers and providing feedback not solely based on color perception. As the baby boom population continues to age, the percentage of users with some level of special needs is increasing.

Disability does not just mean those who are blind or deaf. Among other things it also covers folks that may be hard of hearing, those that are color blind, are unable to use their mouse, or speak clearly, or need things to be magnified, etc.

1. How crucial is it for your company to buy products that meet accessibility/508 requirements?
2. How important is it that the Citrix suite of products you use meet accessibility/508 requirements?
3. Which products do you believe must meet accessibility/508 requirements?
4. Do you have administrators or end users who are keyboard centric, that is they prefer to use keyboard (shortcuts, access keys) to interact with the software vs. mouse?
5. Do you have users who have difficulty using the mouse due to some physical limitations?
6. Do you have users who are color blind?
7. Do you have users who are visually impaired and often use some sort of a magnifier application to see the things on the screen?
8. Do you have users who are legally blind and use a screen reader such as JAWS?

I look forward to your comments and a very engaging discussion.

Regards,
Bhagirath Thaker
Usability Design and Evaluation