Here is my take on the Citrix Synergy 2016 Opening General Session.
During the General Session at Citrix Synergy in Las Vegas on Tuesday the 24th of May, 2016, CEO Kirill Tatarinov (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirill_Tatarinov) announced the latest and greatest Citrix news.
XenServer will be getting a refresh with a new version, 7.0 (codename Dundee). The new version is already available for download on the Citrix support site. For details check here --> https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/05/24/xenserver-7-whats-new/
XenDesktop will soon arrive with version 7.9. Expect availability in early June. For details check here --> https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/05/24/continuing-our-innovation-journe...
A new endeavor for support of Rasberry Pi (called HDX Ready Pi) as the ultimate thin client was also announced. For more details check here --> https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/05/24/low-cost-desktop-virtualization-...
Netscaler arrives with a new flavor called Netscaler CPX for containerized depolyments primarily for Cloud providers. For more details --> https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/01/12/citrix-netscaler-cpx-a-lightweig...
Also, a new Netscaler Managment and Analytics System is available. For more details --> https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/05/24/introducing-the-next-generation-...
Citrix CEO Kirill Tatarinov went on to shed light on the renewed partnership with Microsoft. Included is new and deeper Sharefile integration with Office 365, new rights management of objects in Azure AD and a re-branding of Worx Forms as Secure Forms. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made a pre-recorded appearance to provide further proof that Citrix and Microsoft will once again be skipping down the road, hand in hand, as a team, collaborating together on future integration between the two software companies.
To close out the news about the "New Citrix", new features of Netscaler on Microsoft Azure with a new offering of DaaS (Desktop as a Service) on the Azure Cloud were also revealed.
The General Session felt "Lack-Luster" with missing energy that was present in previous Synergy events when Mark Templeton (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_B._Templeton) was at the helm of Citrix.
Time will tell if the new Citrix management team can pull off a "Hail Mary" and bring Citrix back into growth alignment from good times just a few short years ago.
Overall, the announcement of new products and features seems to fall short when compared to prior events over the past few years. Citrix also seems to be releasing new versions of their core products faster than their customers can adapt to. Case in point, So far, in the first six months of this year (including June yet to come), Citrix has released XenApp/XenDesktop 7.7 in January, 7.8 in February and now 7.9 coming up in June. Citrix should be working on insuring that prior new releases are stable and have been accepted by the end user community before inundating their customers with newer versions. The recently released 7.8 included a new feature called AppDisk, a new add on to complete with VMware's AppVolumes. AppDisk, as much as we want it, doesn't seem to be production ready as many customers (and partners in their labs) can attest to. Today, many of my customers are still working with XenApp 6.5 due to many legacy applications that may or may not run on Microsoft Windows 2012R2 and the upcoming Windows server 2016. Citrix's AppDNA product can provide answers to application compatibility, however, most customers are not on the Platinum version of XenApp or XenDesktop, which includes AppDNA, or are not willing to spend the time and effort to test applications prior to deployment. Most will simply build a new 7.x environment, install their apps, and either the apps will work or they won't and new apps will be found to replace those that don't. Some things just never change.
As always, you can trust Geeksultant to help you navigate the waters of change in the I.T. industry. For a free phone consultation to discuss your Citrix, Microsoft or VMware needs, call The Geeksultant at 770-559-1492 or reach us at sales@geeksultant.com
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