Citrix To Unveil New Product Strategy

Mark Templeton, president and CEO of the Fort Lauderdale-based vendor, is scheduled to unveil the new strategy March 18 at an event in New York and outline how the new tactics will help Citrix reach growth goals to become a billion-dollar company. For 2002, Citrix reported revenue of $527.4 million.

While details of the strategy are still being finalized, sources familiar with the company's plans said they expect Citrix to introduce Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite, a comprehensive solution for providing anytime, anywhere access to applications.

The suite is built on Citrix's MetaFrame server-based computing platform for Windows and Unix servers, sources said.

"They're trying to give a clearer picture of who they are and what they provide--which is easier access to applications," said a source who asked not to be identified.

Citrix declined to comment.

As part of the new strategy, Citrix plans to change the name of its Nfuse Elite portal server, launched last June, to MetaFrame Secure Access Manager 2.0, a bundled offering that includes Citrix Secure Gateway, the vendor's SSL proxy server, sources said.

Citrix plans to market the combined products as a means of providing secure Web-based access to Internet applications, legacy applications and corporate information without putting holes in a company's firewall, sources said.

Over the past several quarters, Citrix had said sales of Nfuse Elite were not building as quickly as expected. In January, Citrix said it planned to relaunch Nfuse Elite as a secure access manager instead of as a portal.

"People's uptake on knowledge of portals, how they are valuable and what they do has been very slow," said another source who asked not to be identified.

Also included in the MetaFrame Access Suite will be two forthcoming products: Project Pearl, a collaboration tool, and Project Bimini, a password management product, sources said.

Citrix previewed Project Pearl for attendees of its iForum conference in Orlando last November.

Solution providers said they also expect Citrix to provide more details about Feature Release 3 of MetaFrame XP, which will coincide with Microsoft's scheduled April launch of Windows Server 2003.