Citrix Announces Dynamic Desktop Initiative

Initiative Brings Together AMD, Gemalto, Dell, HP, IBM, Neoware, VMware, Wyse and Other Industry Leaders to Deliver the “Dynamic Desktop”

ORLANDO, Fla. — 10/23/2006 — Today at its ninth annual business and technology conference, Citrix iForum™ Global 2006, Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, announced its new Dynamic Desktop Initiative, an industry collaboration led by Citrix that revolutionizes the way IT delivers desktops with profound benefits to the business. Through this initiative, Citrix and its partners will bring increased power, personalization and flexibility to desktops to support a broad range of tasks performed by office workers – from the very basic to the very complex. For the first time ever, IT can deliver optimal desktops to meet the varying requirements of more office workers by delivering the desktop as a service – exactly as required. This new “dynamic desktop,” can be refreshed and managed from the data center, providing the best TCO and security while improving the performance and flexibility for every office worker’s desktop.

Dynamic Desktops
A dynamic desktop is a Windows-based desktop that’s delivered over any network and optimized for office workers’ tasks – from simple to complex. The dynamic desktop includes a Windows-based access device, a network connection, a Windows desktop, desktop delivery infrastructure, and desktop experience management tools.

Five characteristics define the dynamic desktop. They are:

* Delivered - not deployed – making them SAFE: secure, available, fast and easy
* Optimized to deliver the right kind of desktop for every office worker
* Portable - works anywhere, extending where and when office workers can work
* Managed as a secure service that’s proactively monitored and measured in real-time
* Productive and empowering by eliminating downtime for upgrades, enabling one- password access, and always instantly on and ready for collaboration


The Need for Dynamic Desktops
A confluence of market-based drivers as well as technology enablers are causing businesses to re-think the cost, technologies, and processes related to putting a Windows-based PC on the desk of every office worker. However, businesses are stuck – they’re caught between the reality of slow-growing IT budgets, fast-changing business needs, and systems – from desktop to network to applications – that are too static, too complex and too much to maintain.

Today, most desktop computers must be manually configured on-site by IT for any customization, upgrading or technical assistance that is required. The costs associated with managing and upgrading a traditional, standard desktop are extremely high. In fact, James Gaskin of IT World estimates that each Windows Vista upgrade will cost organizations between $3250 and $5000 per user. A Citigroup technology analyst in a recent Bloomberg interview estimated that a third of the world’s PCs would be upgraded after Vista’s introduction. By dynamically delivering the desktop, IT organizations can perform these upgrades for a fraction of that cost right from the data center, and users can experience many of the new features in the operating system sooner than with static deployments.

Virtualization technologies deliver a more cost-effective and secure desktop, but until now, could only service a small percentage of users. Office workers who perform non-repetitive or compute-intensive tasks need desktops that are personalized, versatile, and high powered. Now, with a dynamic desktop, IT can deliver the optimal desktop that’s right for every office worker’s needs.

“The goal of our Dynamic Desktop Initiative is to equip organizations with a better way to deliver desktops as a service to task-oriented office workers anywhere, anytime,” explains Mark Templeton, president and chief executive officer of Citrix. “Whether inside the business or as part of the new virtual organization, end-users want a desktop that’s fast, safe and personal, that never runs out of memory or horsepower, and that can be upgraded with a single click. With the support of our industry partners, we can now bring all of the performance, security and TCO benefits of systems delivered virtually from the data center to the desktop – without compromising the flexibility, personalization and availability that users demand.”

The Optimal Desktop Experience: Three Types of Dynamic Desktops

1. Simple & Fast – This type of desktop is highly efficient, reliable and best for office workers who perform identical, routine tasks such as those in call centers, banks or retail centers. It runs on a Windows-based device and has minimal power requirements. In what has traditionally been called the published desktop, the OS and applications are delivered to match the simple and fast requirements of large populations of users with similar computing requirements. As a result, the simple and fast mode yields the best TCO.
2. Personal & Versatile – This type of desktop is best for workers who perform non-repetitive and more complex tasks such as those in accounting or finance because it’s both personal and versatile. It combines a Windows-based access device, desktop delivery infrastructure, a virtual machine, and desktop experience management tools. IT can easily update and upgrade this desktop, saving time and improving TCO. Managed as a service, enhancements are instant, security is best, and it’s portable to support virtual working from anywhere.
3. High Performance & Powerful – This type of desktop is best for workers such as design engineers, software developers, or financial traders who perform complex, knowledge-based tasks using a wide range of compute-intense applications. These desktops are the most powerful and offer the ultimate in performance. They run on dedicated blade PCs in the data center and scale for practically unlimited storage, memory, and performance.

Support from the Citrix Ecosystem
In addition to Citrix’s number one application virtualization technology, dynamic desktops require a Windows-based access device, a corporate network, powerful servers, virtual machines and desktop experience management tools. As a result, many partners within the Citrix ecosystem of industry-leading companies are joining Dynamic Desktop Initiative to make owning, operating and buying a dynamic desktop as simple as possible. These include:

* Windows-based access devices from DevonIT, HP, Neoware, VXL, WYSE and others
* Servers & virtualization from Dell, HP, IBM, Microsoft, VMware Infrastructure, and XenSource, powered by the AMD Opteron™ processor with AMD Virtualization™ technology
* Desktop experience management tools from AppSense, Courion, enteo, Gemalto and RES


The Dynamic Desktop: More Powerful, Secure, and Less Costly to Maintain
According to Al Gillen, research vice president, system software at IDC, “The practical average life expectancy of client operating systems and the hardware on which they run is four to five years, which leads to upgrading or, more likely replacement of 20-25 percent of the installed base annually. Through the Dynamic Desktop Initiative, Citrix and its partners are making it possible to centralize the computing resources in a more secure and manageable configuration, and to deliver the latest software functionality to end users — without IT staff having to touch the hardware on the users’ desks.”

Dynamic desktops are an excellent alternative to replacing static desktops in the traditional “PC refresh cycle” to gain lower costs and faster rollouts. Dynamic desktops offer better economics, choice, security, performance and are more eco-friendly since they are delivered from the data center and can be upgraded to the latest desktop environment with low- or no-touch from IT staff.

By proactively managing dynamic desktops from the data center, IT can more quickly meet the desktop requirements of more office workers. Office workers get modern, efficient, and personalized desktops. The business gets the best TCO and security while enabling workers to work from anywhere. This offers the added benefits of enabling alternative work styles and support for business process outsourcing, offshoring projects, branch office expansions, workforce continuity, and accelerated acquisition integration.

The Ability to Deliver a Dynamic Desktop is Available Now
To kick-start the initiative, Citrix is releasing a new add-on feature for Citrix Presentation Server™ 4 called Desktop Broker. This feature supports dynamic desktops that are more versatile and powerful. Simple & Fast dynamic desktops are used today by 10 million retail, call center and other office workers who access their desktops through Citrix Presentation Server. The Desktop Broker feature powers two new types of dynamic desktops supported by virtual machines and blade PCs.

The Desktop Broker feature brings Citrix’s proven application virtualization technologies to the desktop. It provides a common management console for both application and desktop delivery, and offers unparalleled performance over any type of public or private network. This new feature provides logical groupings of desktops for easier management and delivery to users. Through transparent session brokering, Desktop Broker allows users to automatically connect to the dynamic desktop that’s best suited for them. It enables seamless connection of users to desktops running on Windows Terminal Services, Microsoft Virtual Server, VMware Infrastructure, XenEnterprise or blade servers that reside in the data center. The Desktop Broker feature is Citrix’s initial desktop delivery offering and is fully compatible with Citrix’s end-to-end application delivery infrastructure solutions, including Citrix Presentation Server, Project “Tarpon,” Citrix® Netscaler®, Citrix EdgeSight™, Citrix Access Gateway™ and Citrix WANscaler™.

Pricing and Availability
Desktop Broker is available immediately to Citrix Presentation Server 4 customers with an active Subscription Advantage agreement. Customers can download a copy, from MyCitrix.com (http://www.citrix.com/mycitrix). All others interested in evaluating Desktop Broker can download a trial version beginning on Nov. 6, 2006. Citrix also plans to deliver a new, comprehensive dynamic desktop delivery product line and will announce additional details in the first quarter of 2007. For more information on Desktop Broker and Citrix’s Dynamic Desktop Initiative, please visit www.citrix.com/dynamicdesktops.

About Citrix iForum Global 2006
Now in its ninth year, Citrix iForum is an annual IT knowledge exchange that brings together Citrix customers, resellers and partners from around the world. Citrix application delivery infrastructure is highlighted by 58 sessions, two dozen customer presentations, partner ecosystem exhibits, technology labs, hands-on technical workshops, roundtable discussions, and product demonstrations. Held at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Fla., from October 22-25, 2006, Citrix iForum 2006 features keynotes with Citrix executives including Mark Templeton, president and CEO. More information is available at http://www.citrixiforum.com.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in application delivery infrastructure. More than 180,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 98 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 6,200 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2005 was $909M.

For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions 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 revenue growth and recognition of revenue, products, 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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Contact Information

Eric Armstrong

Director, Corporate Communications

Citrix Systems, Inc.

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