Access your enterprise, access the world, access the future, claimed the invite for Citrix i-Forum 2002—the fifth annual knowledge exchange event of the company. The welcome letter from the company president and CEO Mark B Templeton also promised to showcase innovative solutions that help solve the dilemma of providing remote and mobile information access in today’s fast-paced, global business environment. And last but not the least, it promised to provide real-world success stories.

Sure, it did. In fact, it offered more much than what was promised. The prowess of Citrix technology was reflected everywhere—from registration to management of conference schedules, the various labs and the media center.

The keynote
Taking off from the prevailing global economic climate and its impact on Citrix and its partner companies, Templeton remarked that the slowdown of the IT industry has to be viewed in the context of overspending on IT during the last three years. "From that perspective, its just a correction," he said adding that while the IT spend between 1981 and 1999 grew at a CAGR of 12%, it registered an abnormal growth of 24% during the period 1999-2001. This also led to the industry overspending to an extent of $240—triggered by the Y2K bug issue, the dotcom fever, R&D and implementations that really did not have a business case.

Templeton also suggested that the industry should prepare itself to face this below the normal 4% growth of IT expenditure for the next four years. According to him, at the end of the period, by 2004, the IT spend curve would be back to 12% or the normal growth rate. Templeton also released details of the survey done by market research company Edge Research to ascertain the technology issues and IT spending trends amongst the 120,000 Citrix customers across the world. The survey result showed that 80% of respondents believed that their companies’ IT spending would either increase or be the same in 2003. On an average, respondents anticipate the global IT market to increase by 13% within the next 14 months, with more than 50% citing market recovery by the end of the third quarter of 2003.

Products, agreements, tieups
Attendees gathered in Orlando during the three-day event also learned about Citrix’s vision of unlimited information access and how the company will continue to help customers gain the most value from their IT deployments through its application serving and access portal server products. Talking about the trends of the e-business environment, Templeton said that the industry is moving towards pervasive access that involves appliances with broader Web capabilities supported by voice and biometric authentication. "The corporates today are looking for solutions that address the business challenges including application deployment, remote office connectivity, workforce mobility and business continuity," he said. Despite the sluggish tech spends, Templeton said that several clients embraced Citrix’s server-based computing solutions that deliver digital office capability. This essentially stores all the corporate applications in a central server and therefore facilitates the employees to access information over any network, anywhere, anytime.

No wonder then the company also announced that it is collaborating with software vendors like Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and BEA to widen the usability of its virtual workplace software.

The company also announced that it would soon be coming out with a new real-time collaboration product that would enable meetings to have real-time view and edit access to documents. The product, code-named "project pearl", was also showcased at the technology lab during the company’s recently held annual event at Orlando. Announcing this Templeton said that the new product would allow dispersed employees or workgroups using Citrix MetaFrame XP for Windows application server software to share access to any published application, enabling secure, real-time collaboration on documents. The product will be formally launched in H1 2003.

The iForum also saw Citrix announce the first service pack for its NFuse Elite access portal server software besides its licensing agreement with BEA Systems and Oracle Corporation. The company also announced it is working with IBM and VMware Inc to deliver an interoperable and manageable server and client consolidation solution that helps remote offices simplify their IT environments and reduce desktop administration tasks by centralizing application delivery. The solution encompasses Citrix MetaFrame XP application serving and management software and VMware ESX Server virtual machine software, which runs on the IBM eServer xSeries 440 Intel-processor based system.

Beside the keynotes from Templeton and senior vice president, products organization and CTO Bob Kruger, the conference highlights also included presentations by Merrill Lynch, National Semiconductor and Sprint on their experiences of Citrix implementation. Not to forget the special reception dinner hosted for the media and the analysts at the Disney’s Animal Kingdom and closing party at the Magic Kingdom’s Tomorrowland.

SHUBHENDU PARTH in Orlando, Florida