Over 7,200 trial versions of Citrix XenServer have already been downloaded across EMEA, Citrix Systems Inc has claimed on the day a free version of the virtualisation platform became available for download in the UK.
The news follows the announcement made by Citrix in February that full enterprise-class XenServer would be offered for unlimited production deployment at no charge, although support will cost extra.
The move to seed the market with its virtualisation product is seen as putting pressure on arch-rival VMware, but also signals that Citrix sees business potential in providing the management tools that are necessary in virtualisation scenarios of any size.
XenServer sites have the option of buying the forthcoming Citrix Essentials toolset to help manage storage, provisioning and workflows across their virtualised environments.
By lower the bar like this, Citrix believes it can accelerate adoption of virtualisation, and push virtualised application and desktop delivery platforms.
Ewen Anderson, MD at Centralis Ltd, an IT consulting house that specialises in application delivery over Citrix said, “Most of our customers are now considering virtualising their application and desktop delivery platforms, so Citrix have clearly drawn a pretty significant line in the sand.”
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One of the early adopter ‘spearhead’ partners of Citrix, Centralis believes the joint agreement with Microsoft over Essentials also positions them well. “As part of a broader end-to-end virtualisation strategy, Citrix and Microsoft are putting together a compelling toolset of management and provisioning tools for server virtualisation, with particular advantages for application and desktop delivery.”
Citrix Essentials product will become available across EMEA on April 7.
