Citrix Unveils "Follow-Me-Data” Fabric to Enable the Personal Cloud

Today, at Citrix Synergy™, the conference where cloud computing, networking and virtualization meet, Citrix announced it is opening up its recently acquired ShareFile data cloud to create an extensible platform for sharing business data across a wide range of apps, devices and services. The company’s new "Follow-Me-Data Fabric” will make it easy for third-party developers and vendors to incorporate common data services like search, share, sync, secure and remote wipe into their solutions through a set of open APIs. Taking a platform approach will also make it easier to create dynamic mesh-ups that extend secure data sharing services to both new and existing apps, and ensure that user data can be accessed easily and securely from millions of business and consumer devices. Citrix also announced the first two products in its own portfolio that will be integrated into this open data fabric, Citrix Receiver™, the company’s universal software client, and Citrix GoToMeeting, the award-winning collaboration solution (see graphic).

Delivering on the Personal Cloud Vision

In the PC Era, data was typically stored on a single personal computer, accessed from a physical office, and shared via flash drives or email. As the industry transitions to the Cloud Era, an increasingly mobile workforce is demanding easy access to data that is un-tethered from offices and devices, and easy to share and collaborate securely with others. These trends are giving rise to the concept of a "personal cloud” – the aggregation of apps, data, preferences and friends that are unique to each individual employee, and move seamlessly across any device or location. Citrix is leading the charge to empower people to work and play from anywhere by delivering "follow-me-desktops” and "follow-me-apps,” and now "follow-me-data.”

Connecting Cloud Data into other Citrix products

The company’s new data cloud platform will be leveraged across the Citrix portfolio in three key areas:

• Citrix ShareFile – The Citrix ShareFile™ software-as-a-service (SaaS) product line itself will continue to make it easy for businesses of all sizes to securely store, sync and share business documents and files, both inside and outside the company. Its centralized cloud storage capability allows users to share files across multiple devices and access them from any location (see Synergy demo video).
• Follow-Me-Data via Citrix Receiver – Millions of people use Citrix Receiver today to access their apps and desktops from any device. By integrating data sharing directly into Citrix Receiver, it will be extended to offer users self-service access to data from any device, anywhere. With this integration, Citrix Receiver will become a single point of access and self-service for users to all their business apps, desktops and data. A technology preview for Follow-Me-Data for Citrix Receiver will be released in the near future (see Synergy demo video). More information can be found at http://FMD.citrix.com.
• GoToMeeting with Workspaces – Leveraging the Follow-Me-Data platform, the next generation of GoToMeeting will add easy-to-use, real-time data collaboration. Now, regardless of if or when a meeting occurs, users have a way to store and share files and meeting notes in one secure place. And when they are working together on a shared document, they can easily start a meeting with a single click (see Synergy demo video). This is a key part of the company’s integrated collaboration vision, combining high-definition web, audio, video and file-based collaboration.

Citrix Ready ISV Partners Can Leverage Follow-Me-Data for their Solutions

Citrix is also extending the Follow-Me-Data capabilities to Citrix Ready® software and application partners. As customers and partners build on the Follow-Me-Data platform, they will be able to easily add follow-me-data services to their products, leveraging the data that other apps store there, and instantly inheriting all the management, mobility and scalability that is in the Citrix ShareFile infrastructure.

Quotes

Jesse Lipson, Vice President and General Manager, Data Sharing product group at Citrix

"It is gratifying to see how we are immediately leveraging the ShareFile technology in the Citrix product line to enable the Follow-Me-Data vision of anywhere, anytime access to data and collaboration. With the three key components of applications, data and collaboration, we are able to deliver on the personal cloud concept for millions of users.”

Bernardo de Albergaria, Vice President and General Manager of collaboration, Online Services division at Citrix

"GoToMeeting with Workspaces fundamentally changes web-based collaboration. Today, there are two distinct camps for business collaboration services – file storage and sharing and real-time conferencing. Merging the best of both worlds, we are creating one elegantly, easy to use platform that allows customers to think differently about how collaboration can happen, anytime from anywhere.”

Mark Bowker, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group

"A user’s workspace, applications, and collaboration tools deliver minimal productivity without the associated data. The easier users can access and share data while IT effectively manages and secures it in the background, the more productive a businesses can be. Citrix’s acquisition of ShareFile has the potential to broaden access to data across applications and devices while arming IT with an enhanced data delivery and management model.”

Related Links

• Expert blog: What Follow Me Data Means to You
• Expert blog: Delivering the Best End User Experience Just Got Even Better with Citrix Receiver
• Workshifting Blog
• Video: GoToMeeting Workspaces demo
• Video: Follow-Me-Data, Receiver and CloudGateway
• Video: Sharefile demo
• Announcement: Citrix Accelerates Data Cloud Strategy with Acquisition of ShareFile

Follow us online:

• Citrix Receiver page
• GoToMeeting page
• Twitter: @Citrix, @GoToMeeting
• Citrix on Facebook, GoToMeeting on Facebook

About Citrix

Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is a leading provider of virtual computing solutions that help people work and play from anywhere on any device. More than 250,000 enterprises rely on Citrix to create better ways for people, IT and business to work through virtual meetings, desktops and datacenters. Citrix virtualization, networking and cloud solutions deliver over 100 million corporate desktops and touch approximately 75 percent of Internet users each day. Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2010 was $1.87 billion. Learn more at www.citrix.com.

For Citrix Investors

This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance. Those statements involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including risks associated with the impact of the global economy and uncertainty in the IT spending environment, revenue growth and recognition of revenue, products and services, their development and distribution, product demand and pipeline, economic and competitive factors, the Company’s key strategic relationships, acquisition and related integration risks as well as other risks detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release or with respect to the announcements described herein.

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