Citrix Wins Microsoft Partner of the Year Award for Breakthrough Office Systems Software Deployment
Healthcare Services Specialist Beverly Enterprises uses Citrix Access Suite to Securely Deploy Microsoft Office to 7,000 Employees at 35 Percent Lower Cost
BOSTON — 7/13/2006 — Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS), the global leader in access infrastructure solutions, today announced Citrix Access Suite™ won the “Office Systems Desktop Deployment Award” in the Information Worker Solutions Category at Microsoft’s 2006 Worldwide Partner Conference. Citrix was selected from a highly competitive field of thousands of Microsoft partners for delivering innovative access solutions built on Microsoft technology to healthcare services specialist Beverly Enterprises, among Citrix’s 180,000 enterprise customers. Microsoft presented the award, Citrix’s first in the Information Worker category, at a ceremony on July 13 in Boston, Mass.
By standardizing on the Citrix Access Suite, Beverly Enterprises reduced its IT operating budget by $10 million, from $28 million to $18 million, over five years. Beverly Enterprises originally had a decentralized system in which each of its 400-plus U.S. locations managed its own IT environment. The distributed systems were difficult and costly to manage, and presented a potential risk to data security. Beverly turned to Citrix Systems for help building a centralized solution based on Citrix Presentation Server™ and Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003.
“With Citrix and Microsoft technologies, Beverly Enterprises now administers data and software from one location, reducing costs and improving application speed and data security,” said David Valcik, VP Technology Services for Beverly Enterprises. “With applications accessed through a Web browser, Beverly also saves by using existing hardware. The new technology environment means that applications deploy in minutes, not months, and that IT can save $10 million in IT expenses.”
Before Beverly Enterprises centralized its IT environment, each location ran its own network, data-storage system, servers, and personal computers and supported its own security, disaster coverage, back-up procedures and installations. Healthcare and business workers often performed their own IT maintenance. IT staff would travel to each location annually to refresh software, but updating more than 400 facilities could take anywhere from a few months to half a year. Every three years, Beverly would perform a costly major software update throughout the organization, simultaneously upgrading hardware, operating systems, and security updates.
To break out of the cycle of costly upgrades and diminishing application performance, Beverly Enterprises decided to centralize its IT environment. The company was able to use existing client hardware, but deliver applications to them remotely from a central data center. Beverly achieved this by standardizing on a combination of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system, including Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services, and the Citrix Access Suite which builds on the capabilities of the Microsoft Windows Server System. After deciding that Citrix Presentation Server best addressed their application deployment needs, Beverly Enterprises chose to implement the entire Citrix Access Suite, including Citrix Access Gateway™, Citrix Password Manager™, and Citrix Presentation Server. The solution provides users with secure access via an SSL/VPN network using the Citrix Access Gateway, enterprise single sign-on and password management capability with Citrix Password Manager, as well as application deployment through Citrix Presentation Server to Beverly’s user population.
In addition to reducing the IT budget, the company has significantly reduced help-desk calls and labor hours, while improving IT responsiveness and boosting staff morale. Having a standard desktop of applications makes deployments and training easier; the initial rollout to 7,000 employees at 70 facilities took only one week and generated only 35 help desk calls.
“We’ve seen a tremendous amount of innovative solutions developed and delivered from our partners this past year,” said Eddie Amos, senior director, Global ISV Group at Microsoft Corp. “We applaud Citrix Systems for their innovative use of Microsoft technologies to meet the needs of our mutual healthcare customers and we congratulate them on this worthy recognition.”
“Citrix and Microsoft continue to work together to provide customers with the best access experience, service, ease of deployment, manageability, security, and return on investment,” said David Jones, corporate vice president, Business Development and Corporate Affairs, for Citrix. “Beverly Enterprises is an excellent example of a company that turned those benefits into cost reductions and an improved IT environment for its employees.”
The Microsoft Partner Program Awards recognize Microsoft Partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the last year. Multiple awards were distributed in each of three categories: Partner of the Year for Technology Innovation, Partner of the Year for Sales and Marketing, and 2006 Excellence Awards.
About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS) is the global leader and most trusted name in on-demand access. More than 180,000 organizations around the world rely on Citrix to provide the best possible access experience to any application for any user. Citrix customers include 100% of the Fortune 100 companies and 98% of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and individuals. Citrix has approximately 6,200 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries. Citrix annual revenues in 2005 were $909 million. Learn more at
http://www.citrix.com.
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.
http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/new...p?newsID=26527
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