core sector communique

Citrix and Dell Deliver a Simple VDI Appliance for the Mass Market

New Integrated Turnkey Hardware Appliance Makes Virtual Desktop Deployments As Simple as Assembling Building Blocks

India, February 28, 2012 – Citrix Systems today announced it has teamed with Dell to deliver a new VDI appliance that radically simplifies and accelerates desktop virtualization deployments for the mass market. The Dell DVS Simplified solution with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box™ is an easy, repeatable solution that will be sold through Dell’s global sales team and channels, reaching millions of customers who want to take advantage of the significant business benefits that desktop virtualization offers, such as enhanced mobility and streamlined IT management.

Leveraging the all-in-one Citrix VDI-in-a-Box software, Dell and Citrix have created a simple integrated hardware VDI appliance that is pre-certified to support defined numbers of desktops. Based on the unique VDI-in-a-Box grid architecture running on Dell servers, the Dell DVS Simplified VDI appliance can be easily installed to create and rapidly scale a virtual desktop deployment in response to business needs, making VDI easily consumable by light IT organizations that may have previously lacked the resources and datacenter infrastructure needed for desktop virtualization.

The VDI appliance is backed by a full Citrix Ready® verified ecosystem, providing customers with tested and validated workforce mobility solutions, supporting over one billion devices, including PCs, Macs, thin clients, tablets, smartphones, along with peripherals such as web cams, printers, mice and keyboards. Customers can have full confidence that the VDI appliance works “out-of-the-box” with existing end-user technology. With the strengths of partnerships like Dell, Citrix is making VDI more simple than it has ever been and more ideal to grow on-demand than ever before, allowing businesses of all sizes to enable mobile workstyles for their users.

The industry is moving rapidly from the PC era to the cloud era, and small and medium businesses want to capitalize on the business benefits of desktop virtualization, including driving efficiencies, enabling mobility and improving business continuity, but typically have much tighter budgets and far fewer resources. Citrix VDI-in-a-Box addresses these needs head-on. The VDI-in-a-Box design eliminates multiple moving parts that can potentially result in higher costs and complexity of infrastructure. The unique all-in-one grid architecture enables a building-block approach by leveraging Dell’s off-the-shelf servers. Scaling a deployment involves simply adding additional servers, with nothing to re-architect or reconfigure. Citrix continues to help simplify the purchase and accelerate the adoption of desktop virtualization with these new additions:

· A Simple, Integrated VDI hardware appliance – Dell and Citrix have teamed together to create an integrated hardware VDI appliance that comes pre-certified to support defined numbers of desktops. There is no need to determine how much disk, CPU and RAM to use. Simply unpack the box, power it on and go. Built on the VDI-in-a-Box grid architecture, adding virtual desktops is as simple as adding appliances like building blocks, and high-availability is built-in. This solution simplifies and accelerates VDI deployment especially for non-enterprise customers who may lack the resources and datacenter infrastructure that desktop virtualization may require.

· Support for Mobile Workstyles from Over One Billion Devices – The popular Citrix Ready verification program, which helps customers identify third-party solutions that are recommended for Citrix technologies is now expanded to include testing and validation for VDI-in-a-Box. Using the freely available Citrix Receiver™, users can connect from over one billion devices, including tablets, smartphones, Macs, PCs and thin clients to access their VDI-in-a-Box virtual desktop.

· Certified and Trained Partner Ecosystem – Citrix has launched a comprehensive, self-paced 4-hour technical training curriculum for VDI-in-a-Box available free of charge to qualified partners. Over 1,000 partners have already taken the sales training curriculum for VDI-in-a-Box in the first few weeks of availability. The comprehensive partner sales and technical training is designed to enable the Citrix partner ecosystem to sell to and support the rapidly growing customer base for easy, affordable desktop virtualization with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box.

Quotes

Krishna Subramanian, Vice President, Marketing & Business Development, SMB Solutions, Citrix

“We are seeing tremendous customer and partner momentum with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box as SMBs and departments within enterprises seek to capitalize on the benefits of delivering IT services from the cloud by virtualizing desktops. Our relationship with Dell and the new integrated VDI appliance is aimed at making the transition to the cloud a no-brainer for our mutual customers, ultimately breaking down the barriers to VDI adoption for this very important customer segment through a repeatable, simple, affordable and predictable hardware VDI solution.”

Steve Lalla, Vice President and General Manager of Dell’s Mobility Products and Solutions

“Our customers look to Dell as a trusted companion to deploy desktop virtualization solutions that help them promote workforce mobility, business continuity and streamlined IT management. Our new DVS Simplified solution with Citrix VDI-in-a-Box addresses these issues so companies can focus on their core business objectives. Dell’s DVS Simplified dramatically reduces VDI deployment complexity, with nothing to architect, configure or install – simply power it on and go. What’s more, the solution enables businesses of all sizes to realize the benefits of central desktop management that were previously reserved only for the largest enterprises.”

Chris Wolf, Research VP, Gartner

“We have seen strong interest in virtual desktop technology among our client base. However, cost and complexity have been barriers to entry in certain use cases, namely with small businesses and branch office environments. Virtual desktop appliances represent an emerging virtual desktop solution that delivers desktop virtualization’s flexibility and TCO benefits at a reasonable cost and simplicity that many organizations demand.”

About Citrix

Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) transforms how businesses and IT work and people collaborate in the cloud era. With market-leading cloud, collaboration, networking and virtualization technologies, Citrix powers mobile workstyles and cloud services, making complex enterprise IT simpler and more accessible for 260,000 organizations. Citrix products touch 75 percent of Internet users each day and it partners with more than 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2011 was $2.21 billion.