Citrix will also announce that HP has chosen Citrix as its preferred enterprise single sign-on partner, and is offering Citrix Password Manager as an integral part of the HP OpenView Identity and Access Management suite.
Talking to ComputerWire ahead of a Citrix strategy day for press and analysts in New York, Templeton said of the company’s Access Suite 4.0 launch: We have been building and acquiring strategically, and now this release reinforces the fact that we have the broadest portfolio of on-demand access solutions.
Those strategic acquisitions include SSL VPN appliance vendor Net6 for $50m in cash in December last year, and in December 2003 the $225m acquisition of Expertcity, which gave Citrix hosted remote desktop and collaboration tools including the GoToMyPC and GoToMeeting brands.
But the announcement later today will be of Access Suite version 4.0, which includes 4.0 versions of Presentation Server and Password Manager, but also a new Citrix Access Gateway 4.0 which is a rebranded and more tightly integrated Net6 SSL VPN appliance. Access Suite 4.0 will ship some time in the second quarter.
Presentation Server and Password Manager have a whole raft of enhanced features and functions. But the bigger news is the integration of the SSL VPN, which now offers Citrix customers remote, secure, clientless access to virtually any enterprise application or data source from virtually any device. It’s easy to see why Templeton describes the launch as the biggest in Citrix’s history.
SSL VPN technology in most cases has the edge over the former IPSec security technology because it is clientless, whereas IPSec required a client install. There are numerous vendors offering SSL VPN appliances in competition with Citrix’s Net6. But the difference for Citrix customers is the integration of the Access Gateway into the broader Access Suite.
What that gives users is single sign-on to both their enterprise applications and other Citrix on-demand applications. But crucially it also means that the Access Gateway can automatically and seamlessly reconnect users to their applications and documents when they switch locations or devices – something Citrix calls SmoothRoaming.
Murli Thirumale, the founder of Net6 and now president of the Citrix Gateways Division, added that a key differentiator of its SSL VPN over the competition is the ability for an administrator to grant different users varying action rights. While most vendors offer differing access rights – which govern which users can access which applications – action rights govern what users can see and do to their application based on their role, location, type of device, configuration of device, and connection they are using at the time: this Citrix calls SmartAccess.
For instance the Access Gateway could automatically give users view-only rights when they access their applications from a public internet kiosk, whereas it might give them view, edit and copy/download rights when accessing the same applications from a trusted home computer.
Access Suite 4.0, including Presentation Server 4.0, Access Gateway 4.0 and Password Manager 4.0 will have a list price of $599 per concurrent user for new customers, and $299 per concurrent user for existing Citrix Presentation Server customers.
Citrix claims 160,000 customers, including all of the Fortune 100 and 97% of the Fortune Global 500. It’s based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and has offices in 22 countries. Its latest results were outstanding: sales in the quarter ended March 31 came to $202m, up 25% year on year, while net income came in at $39m, compared to net income of $9.3m in the year-ago quarter.
