Citrix and Blackboard Chalk up New Value for Educational Market

Technology Partners Ink New Deal Allowing Blackboard to Refer Citrix Products Directly to Higher Education Customers

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced that the company has finalized a North America reseller agreement with Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB), a provider of enterprise software applications and related services to the education industry.

Both Citrix and Blackboard are active and well established in the higher education arena, providing information technology (IT) solutions that enhance and expand the educational experience:

* Citrix’s application delivery solutions help schools, colleges and universities create a flexible IT infrastructure, allowing them to provision and deliver secure, on-demand access to applications and information. This also allows educational institutions to accommodate the changing face of the student while making the most of IT budgets.
* Blackboard’s academic solutions enable teaching using advanced tools, building communities across the campus, sharing world-class educational content, and can dramatically lower data and application integration costs.

Backboard, which is both a Citrix customer and a Citrix alliance partner, has studied the performance improvements that Citrix products can provide for Blackboard’s education solutions.

The two technology companies are a perfect fit for education, and Citrix® NetScaler® is already a part of Blackboard’s reference architecture; moving to a reseller agreement that allows Blackboard to sell Citrix products was the logical next step.

“After two years of very successful partnering with Blackboard in the education market, this reseller agreement takes us to the next level,” said Dave Podwojski, director of K-12 and higher education for Citrix Systems. “Citrix solutions already offer significant optimization benefits to Blackboard’s suite of applications, and now it will be easier than ever to get these solutions into the hands of educators and administrators everywhere.”

“At Blackboard, we are committed to improving the educational experience with Internet-enabled technology that connects students, faculty, researchers and the community,” said Stephen Feldman, Senior Director, Performance Engineering, Blackboard, Inc. “As part of the Blackboard Reference Architecture, our relationship with Citrix has enabled Blackboard to bring the best technology solutions directly to higher education clients through our ASP service as well as individual client deployments.”
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
Citrix® and NetScaler® are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.