Citrix Cloud services on Microsoft Azure helping firms transform: Nadella

By Nishant Arora

Orlando (Florida), May 24 (IANS) While rumours of Microsoft eyeing the cloud and desktop virtualisation leader Citrix for acquisition are dotting the tech landscape for quite some time, for Satya Nadella, the two companies are focused on enabling customers digitally transform while providing cyber security and compliance.

Microsoft and Citrix have partnered for over 25 years on remote desktop devices and have nearly 230,000 joint customers and millions of users that rely on their joint solutions.

"Our mission is to empower every person, every organisation on this planet. The core of the mission is fostering strong partnerships with leading organisations like Citrix," the Indian-born Microsoft CEO told the gathering via video link at the 'Citrix Synergy 2017' event here.

"The customers are already witnessing the benefits of our partnership and the rapid adoption of the purpose-built Citrix Cloud services on Azure has seen more than 500 deployments from Azure marketplace in just couple of months," Nadella said as Citrix President and CEO Kirill Tatarinov took the stage.

According to industry experts, the long Microsoft-Citrix association makes for a perfect bond though Citrix has denied any such move.

"We are not up for sale. We are growing and look forward to infuse AI, analytics and machine learning into our Cloud offerings. You will see more announcements on this from us in months to come," Tatarinov later told reporters during an interaction.

Citrix has accelerated innovation in the Cloud, with the introduction of new services like XenApp Essentials and XenDesktop Essentials that are native to Microsoft Azure but managed from Citrix Cloud.

Citrix announced additional Cloud services at the event, including XenMobile device management and app management and NetScaler Gateway Service, allowing customers to create a gateway-in-the-cloud, speeding and simplifying implementation.

In addition, Citrix Cloud now offers integration with Azure Active Directory for administrators, internet of things (IoT) capabilities and other new services in the labs area.

"We are excited to work closely with Citrix to help organisations easily deploy Windows 10 with familiar productive experience," Nadella told the gathering.

According to market research firm Gartner, organisations currently using Cloud services indicate they are allocating 40 per cent of their IT budget to cloud-related spending (including cloud-related services).

Seventy-eight per cent of these organisations plan to increase their spending on cloud through 2017.

Citrix Cloud continues to provide the cloud-based management plane across all Citrix technologies, integrating them with a simple, consistent administrative experience.

Because Citrix Cloud is designed to manage multi-cloud environments, customers who use it for virtual apps, desktops and data can place their workloads on any public or hybrid cloud, or on any on-premises virtualised environment.

For Swedish engineering and consulting company AF, Citrix is creating secure digital workspaces through its Cloud.

"By adopting a Citrix Cloud solution running workloads on Microsoft Azure, we have created a new way of working at AF. This solution gives us the agility we need to respond to various business needs," said Mattias Jadeskold, innovation team leader, AF.

The firm recently revealed how it uses gaming engine and virtual reality software to create 3D, walk-through visualisations for clients on building and infrastructure projects.

"The bigger question is how to harness the technology to drive business outcomes. The rapid pace of innovation like cloud computing, artificial intelligence and advanaced analytics present the most exciting opportunity for businesses of all sizes," Nadella noted.

(Nishant Arora is attending the event at the invitation of Citrix. He can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)