Blog posts tagged with 'iphone'

Lately main stream media picked up on the fact that we're building an ICA client for the iPhone. Several stories emerged, many pointing back to Al's blog as well as our most popular blog post ever by Chris Fleck.

Some have questioned if we were really working on a client or just some vaporware.

I can safely tell you that what you've heard is true, we're building an ICA client for the iPhone, but that's not all. We're not just building an ICA client for another mobile platform, we're redefining the mobile experience for Citrix users, we're building a Citrix Receiver for the iPhone.

iPhone is remarkable for its design and simplicity and we do not intend to change that, in fact, we find ourselves inspired by all its novelties.

Our goal in delivering a Citrix Receiver to an iPhone is to ensure a completely seamless transition from personal to enterprise, all in one device. Virtually millions business critical application run today on Citrix XenApp, and soon enough all of them will be at your fingertips in an iPhone near you.

We are following the very same guidelines every other native iPhone app follows, and to ensure that, we have teamed up with our friends at Apple to deliver nothing but the smoothest experience to our users.

The Citrix Receiver for iPhone will not only look and feel native to this platform but it will leverage many of the software and hardware advancements incorporated into this ingenious device. Expect a rich combination of multi-touch gestures, great usage of the iPhone's accelerometer and many more.

Our timeline can not yet be disclosed, however I can share with you that the first edition of the Citrix Receiver will be released to the App Store within the first half of 2009. In the meantime, we are building an iPhone community site within CDN, allowing us to contribute and share information with the industry as well as a mainline of communication between our development team and the community; this new site will be available soon, stay tuned.

The Project name is Braeburn (Project Braeburn), I'm the Product Architect, Al Grandville - Product Manager, and a highly skilled team of our finest Mac developers; we form the squad in charge of getting the Citrix Receiver released into the wild. On the new iPhone community site you will be able to chat, ask questions and exchange ideas with all of us.

Stay tuned, iPhone magic is coming soon!

best,
Gus

As a mobility evangelist at Citrix, I can't wait for the release of an iPhone app that allows me to connect to our Citrix backend with the iPhone! Only one problem. I don't have an iPhone. Actually, I don't want an iPhone. I'm currently hooked on the Sprint HTC Touch Pro with its full VGA screen, external keyboard and it works today with XenApp (will follow up with a blog on this device later).

Ya the iPhone is cool, the HTC Touch Pro is cool, but to me the really cool thing is that XenApp enables you to leverage a unified application delivery infrastructure to deliver applications and data to whatever device makes sense for your business and users (here's the opening for comments from BlackBerry and Android fanatics, so give us your feedback!).

I recently had the pleasure of briefly meeting Russ McGuire, Vice President of strategy for Sprint and leading strategist and visionary in the telecom industry. Russ is the author of the book, "The Power of Mobility" and in it he introduces McGuire's Law ( http://mcguireslaw.com ):

"The value of any product or service increases with its mobility."

This really hit home with me, being that is exactly what XenApp does for Windows applications with mobility. XenApp increases the value of the applications it delivers by allowing them to be delivered to non-Win32 based mobile devices that these applications were never intended to be consumed on (Windows Mobile, Symbian and iPhone comming), thus increasing their mobility and value.

At the end of the day, a mobile device that is used to access business applications and data is a business tool. Companies need to decide which tools best meet their business needs, and in some cases, this means allowing the end user to make the decision, even if just to keep them happy Having a unified application delivery strategy that crosses the boundaries of all of the different mobile device platforms is a must to ensure your company gets the best TCO and ROI out of the applications you have already purchased and you stay competitive in an ever increasing mobile business environment.

So are you an iPhone fanatic, if not what's yourPhone?

1- What is your personal preference for a business mobile device? And why, give us your comments below.	Choose
Android
BlackBerry
iPhone
Windows Mobile
Symbian

2- Does your company currently support Android mobile devices as a business phone?	Choose
Yes
No

3- Does your company currently support BlackBerry as a business phone?	Choose
Yes
No

4- Does your company currently support iPhone as a business phone?	Choose
Yes
No

5- Does your company currently support Windows Mobile devices as a business phone?	Choose
Yes
No

6- Does your company currently support Symbian devices as a business phone?	Choose
Yes
No

7- Does your company currently give you the choice of which business mobile phone to use?	Choose
Yes
No

8- In your opinion, which mobile phone platform is the best for a business to standardize on (please submit comments below as well)?	Choose
Android
BlackBerry
iPhone
Windows Mobile
Symbian

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-

 A few of us were having a brainstorm session recently regarding the ICA client, mobility and device support, inevitably the discussion led to the topic of competing priorities, limited resources, and business cases. Al Granville ( sometimes affectionately referred to as the " suit " in the blogosphere ) is the Product Manager for the ICA client and has the enviable position of driving what features and functions get included ( and which ones don't ). Nowadays you can't talk about mobility without the topic of support for the iPhone and where that fits versus all the other priorities. If you also want Citrix iPhone support please place your vote and tell us your use case here. Typically this analysis means doing a market analysis, talking to customers and developing a business case comparing all the alternatives and determining the ROI. During this discussion however, Al made the profound statement that maybe in this situation the business case simply needs to say  ...   it's the iPhone.. Stupid !  

This brings up a really interesting point that IT also seems to be dealing with lately, that is what is the value of new and "cool " and do you spend resources to enable these technologies. It could be the iPhone or it could be Web 2.0 collaboration tools or desktop video conferencing, whatever. Sometimes it's straight forward to put an ROI and business case together, however quantifying the value of "cool" is subjective at best. Apple as the best example has done a superb job proving that elegant design, user experience, and "cool " is a profitable business model. This certainly has proven to be the case in the consumer world, but it's also evident that this is impacting the business IT world as well, at least from the perspective of user expectations. I am interested to know if this phenomena is also impacting IT's decision process for implementing new projects.  

What criteria does your IT organization use for evaluating new projects ?	Choose
Business requirements, ROI, and compliance only
The above plus,  Executive mandates
The above plus,  User productivity and desires ( like iPhone support )
The above plus,  Does the new IT technology provide a competitive advantage

As you may have seen in previous blog discussions some of us are very keen on the idea of a device that goes beyond the existing smartphone limitations of small screens and keyboards. The ability to connect to XenApp - XenDesktop from a phone and view it ( & use it ) on a large screen is now possible. This video demos the Nirvana Phone concept with an iMate 6150 and a Redfly from Celio. We are not at Nirvana yet, but these devices make it visible we are getting closer.

Do you ever go on trips and wish you could leave your laptop home?	Choose
All the time
Occasionally
Wishfull thinking ..

Let us know of other candidates for the Nirvana Phone, and what you think is still missing.

You have probably seen the latest buzz on the street, an iPhone "running" Windows XP. This topic made big news this week as a story published by ZDNet Australia landed on the home of Digg.com.

The word "running" was loosely mentioned and that sparked a lot of controversy around visitors, but if we take a minute to explain the "phenomena", you will see there's nothing behind the curtains nor up the magician's sleeve. It's purely a high performance remote desktop (HPRD) being delivered via ICA, Citrix remoting technology protocol.

The demo mentioned above was delivered by our fellow Citrites in Australia, very similar to the one Mark Templeton showed us during his keynote early this year at the Citrix Summit.

So for those outraged with the Windows XP "running" on a "slow" processor like iPhone's, I say - you can all relax, the actual processing was done on a back-end virtual desktop and remotely delivered via Citrix XenDesktop.

Also the article mentioned above only posted a still image of the entire demo; so for those who are interested to see the full demo - here it is, the 5 minutes and 20 seconds-long XenDesktop demo "running" on an iPhone.

       Update **

Running Windows applications on the iPhone may not be a high priority for Steve Jobs, but for many IT users and providers the desire seems to be increasing. The recent SDK and upcoming release of the Apple 3G iPhone has increased the interest in Citrix enabling iPhone access to XenApp hosted Windows applications. We are always encouraging expanded access to XenApp from any suitable device and the iPhone appears to be a very good candidate. The great screen and touch features would provide usable viewing of apps even though they were designed for bigger screens. Plus the improved email and networking capability of the device can now make it a real contender for business use. The iPhone could be even be the " Nirvana Phone " if a new docking station was offered to provide video access to a full sized monitor plus a standard keyboard.

So the question is one of priority and market demand, where does this fit on the list of nice to have vs. must have now, and does the solution need to come from Citrix or could it be partner provided such as the Rove Mobile client for BlackBerry. We encourage your opinions and feedback.

Do you need a Citrix client for the iPhone ?	Choose
I want it for myself
I need it for my company users ( and myself )
Cool, but my company is not likely to enable it

What is the primary iPhone use case at your company ?	Choose
EMR - Patient records, view and update.
CRM - Customer records, view and update.
ERP - Process workflows, approvals, etc.
Documents - Find, view, edit, forward.
Specific line of business app

** Update 11/1/08

Yes, we are listening, and yes we are going to ship a Citrix App Receiver client for the iPhone ! Mark Templeton demonstrated our latest internal build at our Summit event last week and our partners gave us the same enthusiastic response as we are seeing here on the Blogs. Right now the ship schedule is first half of '09 , but keep those votes and use cases coming and help us increase the priority further ! 

Announcing the iPhone Enterprise Beta Program: a unique opportunity for IT departments to try iPhone 2.0 software before its general release. If your company is selected to participate, you'll test new iPhone enterprise features in your corporate environment, then provide Apple with valuable feedback.  

Enterprise features in iPhone 2.0 software beta.

Upcoming iPhone support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and industry-standard corporate security standards will allow IT professionals to seamlessly integrate iPhone into their enterprise environments. New features include:

• Push email
• Push contacts
• Push calendar
• Global Address List
• Certificates and identities
• WPA2/802.1X
• Enforced security policies
• More VPN protocols
• Device configuration
• Remote wipe

Too bad Apple didnt mention anything in there related to Citrix and the Citrix Client

Continue at Source: iPhone Enterprise Beta Program

There's an excellent article in wired magazine about how iPhone is changing the cellphone industry.  It seems that iPhone has really helped change the balance of power between network providers, phone manufacturers and consumers.  I found it incredible to read that AT&T is paying apple $10 a month for each cellphone subscriber.  Not to mention how Apple for the first time was able to dictate to a carrier the specifications of the phone and even force them to change the way the network works (see the vmail system in iphone).

I agree with the article's assessment that the network is just a dumb pipe.