Application streaming is a means for IT shops to provision and deliver desktop applications as an on-demand service. Citrix said the acquisition of the real-time Ardence Software-Streaming provisioning platform offers it new options for delivering desktop and server images or service oriented architecture objects.
The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2007. Citrix said it expects the acquisition will add $15m to $18m in revenue for fiscal 2007.
Citrix has already developed application streaming technologies for centrally managed desktop applications that offers software on demand, from any server connected end point, but which also would provide access to managed applications for disconnected or roaming users. Its project Tarpon is currently being commercialized, probably under the name of Citrix Streaming Server.
This uses a profile, publish, and play schema to deploy a single instance of any commercial or custom-built application set from a streaming server to any networked PC, which does not subsequently require a persistent connection. This addresses the big weakness in the traditional Citrix server-based application delivery approach that could only touch network connected clients.
Citrix sells the Presentation Server product as a means of virtualizing a server-based application set over a persistent network connection. Its Citrix Netscaler line can be used to optimize delivery of an application natively to any end point through a standard web browser, while Citrix Streaming Server is designed to provide access to virtualized desktop applications that are managed from the server but use the local computation capacity of the end point. It also has the Citrix Access Gateway line of SSL VPN appliances for secure, remote-access to applications.
Citrix said incorporation of Ardence technologies will mean administrators could provision physical or virtual desktops from bare metal to production, add new servers to a Citrix Presentation Server farm, or dynamically change the amount of storage or CPU capacity available to web applications during peak load times.
Ardence has a payroll of 100 employees and claims to have more than 3,000 customers. It will continue to be based in Waltham, Massachusetts on the opposite side of the US from Citrix HQ in Florida, and so will become part of Citrix’s Management Systems Group, which is based in nearby Boston.
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