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A flying start |
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Battling with an 800lb gorilla - Where did it all go wrong for Citrix? |
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Stop press: £100 per user saved |
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Quiet progress |
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Something for nothing? |
A flying start
By April 1989, Ed Iacobucci, the founder of Citrix Corporation, knew he was onto something special. Microsoft Windows was changing the world of IT, but at a heavy operational price - across the world, PCs were starting to become a management nightmare. Ed had come up with the idea of bringing the thin-client principles that always lay behind mainframe and big system projects into the world of Windows. He rapidly set about incorporating a business, taking offices in Richardson, Texas, and selling the hell out of the idea to corporations and influencers around the world.
Five years later, with mobile telephony opening up new opportunities for communication and new challenges emerging around security of information, Citrix have moved to prestigious offices in Florida and over in Kent and James Barden has spotted the opportunity that thin client technology will represent for the UK's businesses - a future that holds a lot more than homogenous PCs. James took a small, smart team and set up a small, rather less smart office in Tunbridge Wells where he established Insite with the goal of being the UK's number one thin client expert.
Fast forward to 2003 and the once radical idea of thin client technology has become so commonplace as to be taken for granted and as the number of access devices continues to expand, the demand for consistent implementation and simplified management continues to climb.
Battling with an 800lb gorilla - Where did it all go wrong for Citrix?
Iacobucci recognised that he was unlikely to deliver on his ambitions for Citrix without the support and involvement of Microsoft. Without access to the right code at the right time and the endorsement of Microsoft, it would be a tough job convincing customers to mess with their Windows infrastructure with some new add-on, however brilliant the concept. For Microsoft, thin client was an opportunity to grow their influence on devices that were previously closed to them, but also a threat to their client licence revenues. The relationship had to be handled delicately - but it had to be handled.
Much has been written about the wisdom, or otherwise, of the relationship that Citrix and Microsoft struck, but whatever the commercial rights and wrongs, over the interim years, more and more of Citrix's initial functionality has been appearing in the standard Microsoft products. Indeed charting Citrix's importance in a thin client implementation over time would produce a picture rather like this:
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Stop press: £100 per user saved
Even with the latest versions of Windows 2000 Server, delivering thin client services to users without costly Citrix client licences meant compromises in usability, screen quality and manageability. Microsoft Windows 2003 sees the majority of Citrix functionality included in the standard product. What are the implications? For Citrix, they spell a commercial problem, but for IT executives striving to strip cost out of projects, it represents a huge cost advantage.
The benefits of thin client have always been split between up-front savings and long term operational savings. In the past, the real advantage of thin client has come over time - initial costs were more or less equivalent. Indeed some people may have wondered whether software pricing was carefully constructed to ensure that this was the case.
Microsoft Windows 2003 changes everything. For the first time, there are deep up-front savings to be made. The operational cost savings and improved manageability are the double bonus.
Today, if you are running a mixed environment with non-windows clients and Unix servers, Citrix still has a place in your IT strategy. Otherwise, its role is less clear.
In the past, when implementing a new application, prudent IT directors may have asked whether thin-client might be a more practical and cost effective approach. Today, one has to ask why any new application is NOT being rolled out as a thin client implementation.
Quiet progress
In the meantime, James Barden has been building up Insite’s capability have been built up to the point that today they have one of the largest teams of thin-client specialists, delivering critical projects for organisations as diverse as Tunbridge Wells Borough Council and Moat Housing Association through to LloydsTSB and Bradford & Bingley. But the most remarkable thing? In nearly a decade of projects, Insite have never gone over budget, never missed a project deadline and never failed to complete a programme. Quiet, but extraordinary progress.
Something for nothing?
To find out more about the thin-client capabilities that Microsoft Windows 2003 Server brings, take a look at:
www.microsoft.com/windows2000/technologies/terminal/default.asp
Working out the real commercial and technical implications of a thin client project is not straightforward, but Insite has nearly 10 years of experience in the field and has developed a standard site assessment and return on investment analysis programme. One of our senior consultants visits a client site to evaluate the opportunity and then generates a detailed report with recommendations.
The most extraordinary thing of all? Insite will provide this service free of charge.
To find out more, call 01892 686000 or you can email James directly at jamesb@insite-europe.co.uk
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