Citrix Goes All In With Arrow On Some Distribution Territories

‘It really opens that door back up fully for partners to use their expertise to deliver the Citrix value … to net-new customers,’ says Citrix Channel Chief Ethan Fitzsimons.

Citrix, a business unit of Cloud Software Group, is going all in on its distribution deal with Arrow Electronics, making Arrow the sole Citrix distributor for all channel partners in North America and Europe this summer.

The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based virtual desktop and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) vendor previously revealed a deal with Centennial, Colo.-based Arrow in October tasking the distributor with sales, marketing and technical support for channel partners consuming less than 2,000 Citrix Service Provider licenses across North America and Europe, according to the vendor.

Starting March 3, Arrow exclusively will service Citrix’s midmarket and small and midsize businesses in North America and Europe–customers contributing less than $250,000 in revenue to Citrix. Arrow will become the sole Citrix distributor for both continents, across 17 countries, on June 2.

[RELATED: New Citrix Acquisitions Aimed At Improving Capabilities For Security, Developers]

Citrix, Arrow Deal

In an email to CRN, an Arrow spokesperson said that the distributor maintains several sole-source agreements regionally and globally.

The agreements are tailored to meet the unique needs of the vendor and allow for full leverage of Arrow’s end-to-end portfolio, including processes, people, platforms and market reach, the spokesperson said.

The new deal removes restrictions partners faced around new customer acquisition and what customers partners can bring on board, Ethan Fitzsimons, Citrix’s channel chief, told CRN in an interview.

“It really opens that door back up fully for partners to use their expertise to deliver the Citrix value … to net-new customers,” said Fitzsimons, whose official title is senior vice president and head of global channels. “That opens the door for them … to sell all of their adjacent services, complementary technologies and expand their footprint within the customer's IT.”

According to CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs, Arrow has been working to increase partners' customer satisfaction ratings and improve partner profitability.

The deal also comes after confirmation from Citrix parent CSG on layoffs of an unknown number of employees and the acquisitions of Germany-based deviceTrust and Switzerland-based Strong Network in a move to boost its security and cloud development environment capabilities.

Mike Strohl, CEO of Concord, Calif.-based Citrix partner e360, No. 128 on CRN’s 2024 Solution Provider 500, previously praised Citrix’s Arrow deal and told CRN that he approves of the new one.

Strohl said his company’s investment in building skills around Citrix has been paying off as customers look for DaaS offerings and as he invests in providing customers with more services and outsourcing options.

“My primary desire is to manage customer Citrix environments, not just sell them software,” Strohl said. “There’s a real opportunity for that right now.”

Arrow’s Ecosystem Investment

Fitzsimons said that Citrix and Arrow have been partners for more than 30 years and Arrow is the vendor’s largest distributor partner in North America and Europe already.

“I will commend Arrow in terms of their ability to do the fundamentals within distribution and execute the fundamentals of distribution well, in terms of the quote-to-cash process, credit management and so on,” he said. “They have made a significant investment into what I view as ecosystem-as-a-service. … It truly is a differentiator to not just provide support within the supply chain, but to become basically the servicer of the entire market.”

Citrix channel partners engaging with midmarket and SMB accounts in the applicable territories will work exclusively with Arrow. Partners working with enterprise accounts in the territories will continue to work with Citrix, with Arrow serving as distributor, according to the vendor. Citrix will continue to support and provide software maintenance to customers.

Fitzsimons said that for Citrix accounts that provide $250,000 and more in revenue are still “heavily partner-driven,” with partners “touching nearly all of those customers and transacting with us, delivering sales value, delivering services.”

He said 2024 was Citrix’s “largest channel year we’ve ever had” and his goal is to continue that growth in 2025.

Fitzsimons recommended that in 2025 Citrix partners continue to invest in services for customers, as a recent survey from the vendor found that Citrix Platinum partners see an average sale drives $2 to $3 in services. He also recommended exploring ways to deliver offerings that leverage Citrix with Microsoft and Citrix with Windows 365.

Along with the Arrow deal, Citrix is making an incremental multimillion-dollar investment in partner-dedicated technical resources and channel partner support teams to help the new Arrow agreement, according to the vendor.

Fitzsimons said that the investment includes one team of dedicated partner technical resources in North America and another in Europe. An incremental investment in partner management means more dedicated, individual time for partners to grow joint business.

The new deal will not affect customer support, maintenance and other orders already placed by Citrix customers. Channel partners and distributors will continue to receive applicable incentives and transact on placed orders. The changes do not affect Citrix channel partners outside North America and Europe.

The deal comes as other tech vendors such as Microsoft grow closer to distributors, includingTD Synnex and Ingram Micro for partner enablement and preparing for the AI era.

TD Synnex has plans this year for general availability of a security operations offer that gives partners a more comprehensive view of SMB customers’ Azure security posture, the distributor announced in November. TD has also engaged thousands of partners in its Enablement Journey for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Ingram Micro, meanwhile, announced a Microsoft device partner solutions “fast track” program for partners looking for resources to navigate Windows 11 refreshes in one of its more recent Microsoft-related offerings.