Interop: Citrix CEO Calls On Industry To "Rethink" IT Model

Kicking off the second day of Interop Las Vegas 2008, Mark Templeton, president and CEO of Citrix, called on individuals to "take computing into their own hands" by restructuring their IT models to meet the demands of an increasingly service oriented society.

"Thinking differently and rethinking is not going to be enough. We're going to have to do something very different," said Templeton.

During his keynote in front of hundreds of IT professionals, Templeton said that the IT industry is challenged with serious problems. For one, the industry has been in a recession since 2001, and consequently has faced incremental growth rates of 3 to 4 percent, which comes as a stark contrast to the 25 percent growth the industry experienced in previous decades, Templeton said.

Mark Templeton Keynotes At Interop Las Vegas 2008

In addition, the industry has been slow to embrace an era that's shunning product-focused models and becoming increasingly service oriented. Meanwhile, improvements are incremental, he added. "We're underfunding (the industry)," said Templeton. "We can't fund all of these great ideas that would make a difference in our business."

The IT industry has struggled to keep up with an increasingly globalized industry in which systems, users and applications are distributed all over the world. Templeton maintained that while evolution has led to great advances in processing power and connectivity, it also has created problems when users are distributed in differing geographic locations.

"Complexity is the biggest obstacle to the service oriented era," he said. "The distance has grown further and further apart. It's an incredibly small world and we're caught in the middle of it."

To address some of these challenges, Templeton called for a new structural model for the IT industry to once again be profitable -- a model based on delivery.

"That's the way we have to rethink and think differently -- have less of a focus on product and more of a focus and intense focus on delivery."

Ideally, components of the new system would need to include simplicity and ease of use. They would also include flexibility in choice of devices, integrated security, a dynamic capacity during peak and off-peak cycles, and predictable operation and capital costs, Templeton said.

Citing the Citrix model for delivery, Templeton offered a new system that also emulated that of DirecTV, which included controllers, a simple receiver to receive applications, and branch repeaters that accelerate and amplify signals to users working farther away.

"It's a new mindset followed by a new approach to deliver on a new vision," said Templeton. "A vision that is all about transforming your data center into a delivery center."

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