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Citrix, Cisco bolster partnership

Bonnie Tubbs
By Bonnie Tubbs, ITWeb telecoms editor.
Barcelona, 18 Oct 2012
Citrix CEO Mark Templeton says, since announcing a partnership last year at Citrix Synergy, Cisco and Citrix have more than doubled business together.
Citrix CEO Mark Templeton says, since announcing a partnership last year at Citrix Synergy, Cisco and Citrix have more than doubled business together.

Business software maker Citrix Systems and networking giant Cisco Systems have bolstered their year-long partnership, in a move that sees Citrix take over Cisco's application delivery controller (ADC) and load-balancing services.

The announcement was made by Citrix CEO Mark Templeton as Citrix Synergy in Barcelona kicked off yesterday. It comes on the heels of larger rival Cisco's announcement about two weeks ago that it was scaling down its application control engine - a network device that helps sites direct user traffic to distribute excess load to more servers.

"Cisco is recommending Citrix NetScaler ADC solutions to its customers building next-generation data centre networks, and will integrate NetScaler into the Cisco cloud network services architecture."

Greg Smith, senior director of marketing programs, NetScaler product group, says the development is a major milestone for Citrix as it forges the path in the mobile-cloud era. "It is a great endorsement and a testament to Citrix's technology and its presence in the market."

Templeton says the partnership couples Cisco's leadership in data centre networking, with the application delivery strength of Citrix. "Together, the two companies are helping enterprises and service providers deliver a true cloud network - leveraging deep network and application-level intelligence to speed service deployment and simplify networking services."

Market division

Smith says NetScaler, which Citrix acquired in 2005, has seen sales increase tenfold since the acquisition.

According to Reuters, while application control is a small business for Cisco, which has seen smaller rivals take market share, its exit leaves room for Citrix to take on rival F5 Networks.

Research group Dell'Oro reveals Cisco had around 11% of the $389.6 million application delivery controller market in the second quarter, down from 14% in the first quarter. By comparison, Citrix had a share of around 20% and market leader F5 Networks had 48% in the second quarter.

Next major era

Citrix says the two companies believe the IT industry is on the verge of the "next major architectural transition" ? the mobile-cloud era. The extended partnership, which Smith says is a strategic move, will drive innovation and the companies' go-to-market.

Smith says Cisco and Citrix have publicly committed to investing significantly with the latest move - both financially in resources, and in people. "The expanded partnership will include a significant investment in people and resources to drive market-leading technology innovation, solution integration and validation, customer support, and joint go-to-market investment on a global basis."

Padmasree Warrior, CTO and strategy officer at Cisco, says: "As IT enters the mobile-cloud era, IT providers need to be more innovative about addressing customers' fast changing needs. Cisco and Citrix have [until now] collaborated to deliver significant innovation into the market. Now we are excited to accelerate our partnership into cloud, networking and mobility."

Joe Skorupa, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner, says the next-generation network has to incorporate best-in-class ADC capabilities, integrated into a services architecture that is orchestrated at cloud-scale. "The nexus of converging forces of social, mobile, cloud and information is dramatically changing data centre architectures and how services are delivered."

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