Citrix Systems Inc has launched a version of its Winframe Enterprise thin client-server software designed for use by smaller organizations, based on the same Independent Computing Architecture ICA protocol. Winframe WorkGroups is a five user version of the larger product tailored for use by workGroups, small businesses, franchises and other replicated sites. It is based on the ICA protocol and Citrix’s multi-user technology that enables multiple users to concurrently execute Windows-based applications on a single server. Users will be able to access the applications from across any type of network connection from any client device, and remotely via a facility that offers wide area network or dial-up communication. David Weiss, Citrix director of product management says the only difference between the enterprise and the WorkGroup product is the new offering has a maximum capacity of five years and is therefore not scalable, and does not automatically come with the device to enable NT server management. Other than that, the systems work in exactly the same way. Weiss says Citrix has always intended to develop a product for the smaller organization and hopes it will be able to add to the new WorkGroup product in the future. It has taken until now to come up with the WorkGroup version because Citrix did not want to establish itself as a player in the low end market. But now it has passed the 1 million mark with Winframe for the enterprise it believes it can afford to break out into other areas of the market. Winframe is the company’s flagship product and accounts for the majority of its revenues.
