The Citrix Session: One year of Citrix as part of Cloud Software Group

Looking back on one year post-acquisition and transformation into Cloud Software Group, it’s clear Citrix has undergone significant changes and many people have had a lot of questions. However, we’ve now firmly established ourselves as a company that delivers mission-critical enterprise software at scale, and that has provided the opportunity for the Citrix business unit to refocus on what’s most important: delivering high-performing applications and desktops from any cloud or on-premises data center. Better prioritizing what works best for our customers started with listening to your feedback and using that to inform our product strategy, so we could deliver the solutions that will make the most impact on your IT environment. We are the industry leader in this technology – if you need a reminder, visit our comparison page to see how Citrix stacks up against VMware, as well as all the value we bring to Microsoft solutions. 

We started with recommitting to supporting hybrid work environments, flexible infrastructure and vendor choice, and long-term innovation in line with what you need. And we’ve already made progress toward our goals with new releases, more investment in the technologies you need, and more deployment flexibility, which is unmatched by our competitors. 
Host: Andy Whiteside
Co-host: Bill Sutton
Co-host: Todd Smith

Transcript

WEBVTT

1
00:00:02.370 --> 00:00:15.199
Andy Whiteside: Hello! Welcome to episode 150 of the Citrix session on your host, Andy. Wise side today is November 20, seventh, 2,023 got Todd Smith and Bill sudden with me. Bill, how's it going? Great

2
00:00:16.010 --> 00:00:17.700
Andy Whiteside: Bill! How was the

3
00:00:17.770 --> 00:00:26.079
Bill Sutton: How was the Thanksgiving holiday. It was relaxing, you know. Spend time with family, ate some turkey, you know, the same old thing, but it was good

4
00:00:26.270 --> 00:00:34.719
Andy Whiteside: how you feeling this week. Not bad. I, Todd, how about you? Before I tell you what happened to me? I'll ask you how was your Thanksgiving?

5
00:00:35.170 --> 00:00:46.499
Todd Smith: My thanksgiving was great. We actually took the week off, and only had a few customer conversations during that week. But got a chance to see family. My

6
00:00:47.540 --> 00:01:00.130
Todd Smith: son flew in from St. Louis with his girlfriend and her daughter so had a 5 year old running around the running around the Thanksgiving table went over to my brother-in-law's and his family, celebrated,

7
00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:12.329
Todd Smith: you know, with family and friends, and then spent some time up on the farm in Maine, cleaning and clearing off 3 inches of snow that happened. Oh, wow, yeah. yeah. So it was good.

8
00:01:12.420 --> 00:01:14.190
Andy Whiteside: Any of those opportunities. I think

9
00:01:15.880 --> 00:01:27.180
Andy Whiteside: so. My story is, I came down with a stomach bug Wednesday night. and it ruined. not ruin. But it impacted my entire family's Thanksgiving, because I'm

10
00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:38.649
Andy Whiteside: you know, somewhat involved and making everybody happy and keeping the peace and keeping everybody entertaining. So I don't wanna say I definitely did not help the Thanksgiving Day activities.

11
00:01:38.730 --> 00:01:48.039
Andy Whiteside: but it went on without me, which is kind of good to cause. They all got to do their thing without me. And I got to lay in the bed for a day and a half.

12
00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:51.450
Andy Whiteside: So I kind of rested. Kinda

13
00:01:51.700 --> 00:01:57.280
Todd Smith: you're probably the only person that lost weight over Thanksgiving. Yeah, definitely lost weight.

14
00:01:59.100 --> 00:02:03.969
Andy Whiteside: Hey? So today's blog is, let me pull it back up here.

15
00:02:04.100 --> 00:02:08.769
Bill Sutton: Well, I also saw you. Wolf. Pack 1, 2, Andy. So that's a that's a good thing, right.

16
00:02:08.830 --> 00:02:11.840
Andy Whiteside: It's always a good thing.

17
00:02:12.090 --> 00:02:32.389
Andy Whiteside: So we did go to college football on Saturday, and it is the North Carolina rivalry, if you will, in football. My my kids will tell me their rival Duke, which is probably true. But they lose in football a decent amount to North Carolina State, so I like to try to think it's somewhat balanced.

18
00:02:34.210 --> 00:02:59.119
Andy Whiteside: So the blog that we're chose to do from day is actually back from September, and it is from Calvin Shoe. Calvin was a good friend of Zintigra's in the podcast but the pod the blog, the title of his one year of Citrix as part of cloud software group. And it really talks about kind of the vision. And what's happened and what they're planning forward. I kind of brought this one up, guys is one that I wanted to do is probably good for the 1 50. I really didn't do a good job at man

19
00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:06.989
Andy Whiteside: go highlighting this, our 100 and fiftieth citrix. Podcast but you know, we're at 150. It's been a year into the cloud software group.

20
00:03:07.060 --> 00:03:24.220
Andy Whiteside: I believe this was good to kinda just keep reminding people what's going on Citrix is part of this private held organization one of the business units has privately held as part of the what? Elliot and Vista ownership group. Todd.

21
00:03:24.520 --> 00:03:27.809
Andy Whiteside: what? Why? So I brought this to, you guys.

22
00:03:28.090 --> 00:03:38.989
Andy Whiteside: you guys agreed to cover this? What? What's the importance of taking a moment in time and looking back for you over the last year? Yeah. So so II think there's a really

23
00:03:39.190 --> 00:03:53.790
Todd Smith: great and opportune time to actually talk about this, because. you know, we're a year into this newly formed cloud software group. And if we look back a year ago, October first is when the

24
00:03:53.890 --> 00:03:57.000
Todd Smith: Cloud Software group was officially formed. That was the

25
00:03:57.030 --> 00:04:04.939
Todd Smith: September thirtieth was the end of Citrix as a publicly traded Company cloud Software Group came out as

26
00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:07.549
Todd Smith: October first.

27
00:04:07.720 --> 00:04:08.989
Todd Smith: There was a lot of

28
00:04:09.600 --> 00:04:18.950
Todd Smith: fear, uncertainty, and doubt out there. What was going to happen with Citrix? What was going to happen with customers? What was going to happen with

29
00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:22.170
Todd Smith: some of our core products, you know.

30
00:04:22.600 --> 00:04:37.880
Todd Smith: we knew virtual apps and desktops was going to be a a strong component of what we had to offer. But there was questions about what's going on. What's going on with Netscale? What's gonna happen with the Zen Serp? What's going to happen with share file?

31
00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:50.979
Todd Smith: so you know, those are all valid concerns. There were valid concerns from both customers, partners as well as employees.  And then, you know, we we

32
00:04:51.330 --> 00:04:57.860
Todd Smith: came out with, you know our our CEO. Tom Kraus came out with his organizational design of

33
00:04:57.870 --> 00:05:05.900
Todd Smith: having separate business units for each of these core product groups. Right? So you see, the the Citrix business unit

34
00:05:06.170 --> 00:05:19.219
Todd Smith: has its own development team has its own support team and has its own kind of core components. But then there's there's a model of hr. And finance and things like that are all part of cloud software group.

35
00:05:20.440 --> 00:05:32.039
Todd Smith: It also created Netscaler as its own business unit, share, File and Xenserver as their own separate business units, along with all of the things that came over with Tivk. All the other business units as well.

36
00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:38.810
Todd Smith: all falling into this cloud software group family. An organization. So

37
00:05:38.860 --> 00:05:42.830
Todd Smith: a year into this. things have been very successful.

38
00:05:42.870 --> 00:05:50.720
Todd Smith: We have shifted a couple of things. But we're going to get into some of the details around those things. But it was more. How do we compete better?

39
00:05:50.850 --> 00:06:02.000
Todd Smith: How do we become more valuable to customers and partners. And then, more importantly, how do we? How do we clearly define what we can do as far as innovation?

40
00:06:02.530 --> 00:06:07.170
Todd Smith: And this is really where the the

41
00:06:07.800 --> 00:06:13.209
Todd Smith: the leather hits the road right, or that that'll you know the the the tyres.

42
00:06:13.540 --> 00:06:21.030
Todd Smith: the rubber hits, the rope. and that is. if we can spend more time and more investment innovating

43
00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:29.189
Todd Smith: in protecting that core investment that customers have made and expand upon that to actually bring

44
00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:32.800
Todd Smith: more valuable innovation.

45
00:06:32.860 --> 00:06:42.100
Todd Smith: Right? I think that's where that that's where we have made some serious inroads and we've made. We've had a lot of accomplishments in this area.

46
00:06:44.190 --> 00:06:45.580
Andy Whiteside: Bill. You're

47
00:06:45.620 --> 00:07:08.500
Bill Sutton: your your thoughts on the overall idea that it's been a year. And we take a moment here to look back. Yeah, III listen to the Todd. I'm like. I'm not sure I can say much more than that, to be honest, but I think the real. The key message that I've gotten out of the past year is is, and I know Citrix has said it a number of times is the concept of meeting customers where they are and

48
00:07:08.500 --> 00:07:32.180
Bill Sutton: not not trying to move customers to the cloud. Necessarily, you know, certainly providing a a a pathway to the cloud, but also providing a lot more development, a lot more commitment to meeting customers where they are when they're on. If they're on prem, or if they're in the cloud and providing parity between feature sets between those 2 deployment methods. I think that's been a key message that we've we've seen, not we've heard.

49
00:07:32.180 --> 00:07:45.719
Bill Sutton: not just heard. But we've also seen. And what's what's come out. Some of the, you know, the big developments, you know, around around providing functionality on premises for customers that still want to deploy the solution in that manner.

50
00:07:47.300 --> 00:07:51.609
Andy Whiteside: I have a question for you guys. II didn't think about this until Todd started talking, would he?

51
00:07:52.040 --> 00:07:57.109
Andy Whiteside: What do you think the timing of this? Is it just coincidence that the the vmware broadcom thing

52
00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:01.560
Andy Whiteside: closed? What last last week?

53
00:08:02.740 --> 00:08:05.639
Andy Whiteside: Similar similar path? It is.

54
00:08:05.890 --> 00:08:13.300
Todd Smith: Yeah. So so coincidence and and conspiracy, or kind of to

55
00:08:13.640 --> 00:08:16.620
Todd Smith: 2 words that I don't like to use an awful lot. But

56
00:08:16.920 --> 00:08:23.370
Todd Smith: there are some things here that makes a lot of sense. And it's and it's the shift in the entire industry

57
00:08:23.520 --> 00:08:31.559
Todd Smith: that's happening. you know, customers are wanting to go towards more of a service provider model.

58
00:08:32.830 --> 00:08:34.340
Todd Smith: both for

59
00:08:34.400 --> 00:08:44.220
Todd Smith: who the vendors that they're working with. But they're also shifting a lot of organizations of shifting more towards a shared services service bureau model.

60
00:08:44.450 --> 00:08:45.500
Todd Smith: we're

61
00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:59.190
Todd Smith: they're putting up, you know it. It's not only are they holding vendors to sla and service levels and expectations, but they're also doing it internally within it organizations. A lot of it. Organizations

62
00:08:59.380 --> 00:09:05.940
Todd Smith: have fundamentally changed over the past 5 years. They've gone from IT being

63
00:09:06.510 --> 00:09:23.309
Todd Smith: something that is necessary evil for a lot of organizations. They tend to fall under a financial office type of build or or model it is really being looked at as ways to innovate, improve business.

64
00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:33.179
Todd Smith: but also live up to expectations right there. No, it is no longer kind of the the money pit that it was in the past right. They have to show

65
00:09:33.500 --> 00:09:36.630
Todd Smith: more value, being delivered

66
00:09:36.650 --> 00:09:43.419
Todd Smith: and not just, you know, sunk cost. And with that value it could be. Hey, how do we? How do we influence

67
00:09:43.750 --> 00:09:54.100
Todd Smith: people's ability to work from home and work from anywhere? How do we reduce security risks? How do we improve performance. how we make it. So our employees are much more productive

68
00:09:54.840 --> 00:10:07.359
Todd Smith: while maintaining that level of security and reducing risk and things like that. So there's been there's been a considerable amount of change. And that's that kind of changes. And we talk an awful lot about hybrid work models.

69
00:10:07.540 --> 00:10:09.490
Todd Smith: This is all part of the hybrid work model.

70
00:10:09.530 --> 00:10:17.879
Todd Smith: It's no longer where I'm putting resources, where I'm consuming resources from, but where those employees are working from

71
00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:29.599
Todd Smith: that's hybrid just as well. The fact that they can work from home. They can go to a coffee shop, they can go to the office. They can go to a branch location and have that same quality in non disruptive

72
00:10:29.750 --> 00:10:31.749
Todd Smith: experience is huge.

73
00:10:31.880 --> 00:10:32.600
Yeah.

74
00:10:32.960 --> 00:10:51.839
Andy Whiteside: W. Would you guys agree with the statement that what's happened at Citrix over the past 12 to 18 months. And now, what's happening at vmware around in user compute. And the changing of you know, the the ownership structure is is really a good thing for their existing and future customers.

75
00:10:53.880 --> 00:11:12.309
Bill Sutton: Well, I mean, I think obviously it it kind of disrupts the status quo and forces them into being more more competitive, more off, more focused on the customer and more responsive, perhaps, I think, those types of things often happen when you have a a change in structure change in ownership.

76
00:11:12.340 --> 00:11:17.900
Bill Sutton: And I think Citrix has certainly demonstrated that, and and I expect Vmware will as well. But we'll see.

77
00:11:18.380 --> 00:11:22.799
Andy Whiteside: But, Bill, I love what you said, Todd, if I were to come to you.

78
00:11:23.210 --> 00:11:34.919
Andy Whiteside: come to you a year, 2 years ago and said that something needs to change, and Citrix and Vmware and others on the Euc side needs something to disrupt

79
00:11:34.940 --> 00:11:36.829
Andy Whiteside: the current status quo.

80
00:11:37.010 --> 00:11:41.749
Andy Whiteside: What would you? What? What would you have thought then? And in hindsight. What would you have thought

81
00:11:42.730 --> 00:11:51.590
Todd Smith: so? So I've always been a firm believer, that. you know, because people will connect to a citrix icon

82
00:11:52.080 --> 00:12:04.809
Todd Smith: to get to whatever their resources were, whether it be an application, a virtual desktop, or something. Things like that. People would just click through that they would automatically bypass that. So they never really got exposed to the value that's being delivered

83
00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:11.510
Todd Smith:  from a user perspective from an Admins perspective and from an operational and financial

84
00:12:11.560 --> 00:12:15.690
Todd Smith: perspective, right? So oftentimes that was hidden

85
00:12:15.930 --> 00:12:19.489
Todd Smith: right? And we could probably say the same thing for

86
00:12:19.700 --> 00:12:26.330
Todd Smith: for vmware, right? It is a you know, we are a application and service delivery

87
00:12:27.150 --> 00:12:28.200
Todd Smith: layer

88
00:12:28.460 --> 00:12:43.000
Todd Smith: where we don't have the end. Applications like Microsoft has with office or excel, or a browser right whether it be edge or or you know, chrome, or anything else like that.

89
00:12:43.420 --> 00:12:52.600
Todd Smith: We have a, you know. So we were always kind of the hidden in sunk costs of doing. IT, and

90
00:12:52.880 --> 00:12:58.410
Todd Smith: part of that is having to be able to show value to folks that really didn't understand

91
00:12:58.920 --> 00:13:00.149
Todd Smith: what we did.

92
00:13:00.410 --> 00:13:04.219
Todd Smith: That was a challenge. And I think the other piece of it is.

93
00:13:04.680 --> 00:13:12.399
Todd Smith: everything now is focused around things like security and operational efficiency and driving.

94
00:13:12.870 --> 00:13:16.199
Todd Smith: You know, those are 2 major components of that value statement?

95
00:13:16.900 --> 00:13:30.750
Todd Smith: Especially when you look at what is the cost of a security breach? What is the cost of not doing something to secure your environment. What are the potential risks associated with that? What is the cost of downtime? And, more importantly.

96
00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:39.589
Todd Smith: it's the cost of lost time. Right? If I have a user, that is, you know, it takes them forever to log in and get and do their work.

97
00:13:40.700 --> 00:13:49.049
Todd Smith: People don't think about that when they, when they're figuring out what the value is that we're delivering. So I think the biggest thing, Andy, is the. It's

98
00:13:49.190 --> 00:13:56.329
Todd Smith: it's getting to that value conversation sooner and educating customers on exactly what we do.

99
00:13:56.980 --> 00:14:01.019
Todd Smith: because in the past we, you know, we were always kind of overlooked.

100
00:14:02.210 --> 00:14:09.739
Andy Whiteside: Okay, so so let me summarize what I was thinking, and what I think I just heard you say not, maybe specifically or explicitly.

101
00:14:09.810 --> 00:14:14.860
Andy Whiteside: End user compute. Boil that down to Citrix in this case

102
00:14:15.200 --> 00:14:42.230
Andy Whiteside: had become part of just doing business in it, just doing big business, and it whereas we all know that it's a very, a very niche piece that needs to not be kind of hidden within. It needs to be leading the way, and very very much a leading part of the stack bills, and that it needed. It needed disruption to get out of that mold of

103
00:14:42.390 --> 00:14:43.879
Andy Whiteside: just part of it.

104
00:14:43.930 --> 00:14:49.960
Bill Sutton: III think it did. And to kind of force, innovation, force a different approach

105
00:14:50.130 --> 00:15:02.960
Bill Sutton: particularly the approach of of giving giving more love to the on premises customers that had been the bread and butter for years, I think, I think, yeah, I think it had it obviously helped in that regard.

106
00:15:03.940 --> 00:15:18.939
Andy Whiteside: Yup, yeah, it it kind of need to happen. And by the way the the timing of coming out of pandemic. And now we're gonna talk about hybrid work now made it so where it was way too important to be hidden, you know, just kind of blended in with everything else. It needs to be a forethought on an after thought.

107
00:15:20.920 --> 00:15:33.739
Andy Whiteside: So Todd, this next section really talks about. You know what Citrix said they were, gonna do. And I need you. Kinda you know, validate that you feel like you guys have hit hit the mark or not. And that is really committed to the hybrid work store.

108
00:15:34.990 --> 00:15:39.380
Todd Smith: Yeah. And and I think this is critical, because. you know.

109
00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:50.979
Todd Smith: for for so many years. Vdi was a necessary evil. It was very. It was a very expensive solution for a problem that may not have

110
00:15:51.710 --> 00:15:54.510
Todd Smith: existed to the extent that you had to go out and

111
00:15:54.720 --> 00:15:59.339
Todd Smith: spend so much money on. On a dedicated virtual desktop.

112
00:15:59.570 --> 00:16:16.969
Todd Smith: Right? Cause. That was the original model, right? Everyone would have a dedicated machine virtual machine that would sit in the data center that was always up and running. And then people started looking at the cost of that right? So they needed to start pairing back the onion, feeling back the onion and saying, Hey, you know, what? What do I really need? What

113
00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:25.419
Todd Smith: do I really need to get my job done? And often, Kate, and oftentimes that was a a, an access to an application

114
00:16:25.730 --> 00:16:29.610
Todd Smith: and access to that application need to be secure need to be reliable.

115
00:16:29.780 --> 00:16:40.020
Todd Smith: And I needed to be able to have my data follow me and things like that. So now, all of a sudden, we're stock starting. Talk about and non persistent desktop

116
00:16:40.340 --> 00:16:45.920
Todd Smith: experience. And you know. we started figuring out that.

117
00:16:45.990 --> 00:16:51.029
Todd Smith: hey? There are some. There are different scales of use cases here that we need to work on.

118
00:16:51.330 --> 00:16:55.759
Todd Smith: The consistent thing is all around the Hdx technologies that we have right.

119
00:16:55.790 --> 00:17:05.640
Todd Smith: regardless of what application I'm using or whether I'm using a virtual desktop. I still needed to do things like print. move files around access information.

120
00:17:05.800 --> 00:17:10.290
Todd Smith: have my profile follow me without having to be recreated every time

121
00:17:10.339 --> 00:17:23.909
Todd Smith: I needed to be able to plug in a USB. Device and have that enter into my either my virtual app or my virtual desktop. I need to have all these components in there that we were the industry leader when it came to that.

122
00:17:24.640 --> 00:17:27.280
Todd Smith: And when it comes to that it's

123
00:17:27.569 --> 00:17:32.440
Todd Smith: the ability to lock down policies and the ability to have

124
00:17:32.970 --> 00:17:46.969
Todd Smith: it improved. Experience that impacts both the user experience as well as the admin experience while still providing them with the security and performance that they need. So there was a lot of things there that we had to do.

125
00:17:46.990 --> 00:17:48.710
Todd Smith: And continue to do.

126
00:17:49.120 --> 00:17:50.719
Todd Smith: Yeah, the yep.

127
00:17:51.290 --> 00:17:57.069
Andy Whiteside: And Todd, it's not like you guys weren't doing that. It was just part of some bigger story

128
00:17:57.120 --> 00:18:02.499
Andy Whiteside: that may or may not have been resonating with customers the way you wanted it to.

129
00:18:02.680 --> 00:18:08.169
Todd Smith: Yeah. And and part of it is, you know it. It's the notes. It's the individual notes that get lost in the symphony.

130
00:18:09.360 --> 00:18:12.460
Andy Whiteside: Yeah. Still, thoughts on this piece.

131
00:18:13.320 --> 00:18:24.379
Bill Sutton: Yeah, II mean, obviously, again, there's been a lot of innovation. Commitment to hybrid environments. I think the the obviously the pandemic kind of

132
00:18:24.700 --> 00:18:32.689
Bill Sutton: accelerated. This. I think we would have gotten here largely, maybe not to the extent we did. But we got here largely because of that.

133
00:18:33.250 --> 00:18:43.269
Bill Sutton: you know. Obviously, the the capabilities that Hdx offers are key and the improvements we've seen in that demonstrate

134
00:18:43.450 --> 00:18:45.080
Bill Sutton: a commitment

135
00:18:45.120 --> 00:19:14.639
Bill Sutton: to hybrid work, particularly around, particularly as it relates to acceleration of of things like teams and zoom and other other remote work technologies. In addition, obviously like Todd was alluding to there. The the ability of a user to just access an application, whether that's a a regular client, server, app or web app or Sas app and leveraging or coming up with these 0 trust technologies. Some of the additional capabilities added. They were already doing this

136
00:19:14.640 --> 00:19:38.689
Bill Sutton: prior to the to going private. But I think I've seen I've seen this accelerated, the concept of secure private access, the the secure browser those types of things that are that are providing another method for users to be able to access their applications that may not involve the complexity or infrastructure requirements of a traditional Vdi or or remote hosted application environment. I think all of those things demonstrate.

137
00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:46.460
Bill Sutton: You know the commitment Citrix has towards towards the hybrid work in whatever form it it happens to take.

138
00:19:47.260 --> 00:19:58.480
Andy Whiteside: Yeah, well, in in in the blog, it calls out in this order, user experience. And then next paragraph security, and you can take those 2 and flip them back and forth. And I don't think there's any doubt that

139
00:19:58.630 --> 00:20:15.079
Andy Whiteside: Citrix, prior to going private, was doing these things. It was just getting lost in a bigger message now that they've taken the business units and pulled them apart. Citrix, specifically. It's it's a much easier story to get people to hear and understand.

140
00:20:15.340 --> 00:20:37.390
Bill Sutton: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And I think that applies to the other business units as well, you know, when you start talking about something like Net Scalar, you know. I think a lot of us would II would hope that a lot of us might agree that the that the capabilities of that scale I know we're really not talking about that, but the capabilities of net Scalar as a as a technology we're far greater than that of a remote access

141
00:20:37.410 --> 00:20:53.939
Bill Sutton: solution. Obviously, Netscaler can do a whole lot more than just provide remote access to a Cbad environment or a or a Das environment. And I think now that they've broken them apart and they can have more focus on their strengths, and that's gonna benefit

142
00:20:53.970 --> 00:20:59.680
Bill Sutton: Citrix, zen server and that scalar share, file all, all, all, all of them.

143
00:20:59.800 --> 00:21:04.849
Andy Whiteside: Alright, yeah, it can only help. I mean having the the attention and the focus

144
00:21:05.170 --> 00:21:07.850
Andy Whiteside: can can only help, especially when you're in a space that's

145
00:21:07.990 --> 00:21:11.129
Andy Whiteside: requires this much attention to focus.

146
00:21:11.480 --> 00:21:12.280
Bill Sutton: Yeah.

147
00:21:12.610 --> 00:21:26.150
Andy Whiteside: Todd, the next section talks about flexible infrastructure and vendor choice. I think maybe maybe tell a little bit about the story prior to all this, around what Citrix was driving people towards, and how they've adopted. You know the new world.

148
00:21:26.230 --> 00:21:33.539
Todd Smith: Yeah. So so if you remember, a couple of years ago, you know, we were driving a lot of customers to the cloud.

149
00:21:33.790 --> 00:21:44.129
Todd Smith: Cloud was where was where we were doing a lot of innovation. you know, we we were pushing customers to to get cloud-based licensing

150
00:21:44.300 --> 00:21:51.499
Todd Smith: in realizing. you know afterwards that there was a lot of customers.

151
00:21:51.830 --> 00:21:59.619
Todd Smith: They either weren't ready to go to the cloud. They were not able to go to the cloud because of financial restrictions.

152
00:21:59.730 --> 00:22:06.189
Todd Smith: or they just purely were not going to be allowed due to regulatory requirements to move

153
00:22:06.260 --> 00:22:08.640
Todd Smith: all of their environments up to the cloud.

154
00:22:09.570 --> 00:22:16.970
Todd Smith: So we had to come up with a hybrid approach. So we came out with hybrid rights which basically said, for a period of time.

155
00:22:17.060 --> 00:22:20.639
Todd Smith: you could run both on prem and in the cloud.

156
00:22:21.240 --> 00:22:26.220
Todd Smith: Without having to go, be forced to the cloud and then, as we

157
00:22:26.460 --> 00:22:38.690
Todd Smith: continue to evolve as a company, realizing that this whole meet, the customers where they are concept could also apply towards the infrastructure components of it.

158
00:22:38.710 --> 00:22:42.090
Todd Smith: So if you were going to the cloud.

159
00:22:42.360 --> 00:22:48.070
Todd Smith: if you were, if you had to remain on Prem, or if you were going to a I

160
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:54.149
Todd Smith: hosting partner, you know, some type of third party solution or some type of public cloud.

161
00:22:54.900 --> 00:23:01.970
Todd Smith: You wanted to be able to have one single license, one single entitlement. That would basically say, I can run my environment anywhere.

162
00:23:02.090 --> 00:23:07.670
Todd Smith: So that was, that was a considerable shift on our part.

163
00:23:08.280 --> 00:23:15.680
Todd Smith: and it probably made sense for us to do that. As we. As we merged into cloud software group.

164
00:23:15.740 --> 00:23:23.789
Todd Smith: it made a lot of sense, right? And we've seen an awful lot of improvements there, right? So

165
00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:30.249
Todd Smith: being able to say, you know. all development activities are going to be.

166
00:23:31.040 --> 00:23:35.070
Todd Smith: You know, they have to be cloud-enabled, but they also have to be able to run on-prem.

167
00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:44.120
Todd Smith: Some of these cloud services that were initiated on cloud service or on a cloud model are now being ported to being on-prem as well.

168
00:23:44.250 --> 00:23:48.490
Todd Smith: So there's a lot of, you know, there's been a lot of innovation on that perspective

169
00:23:48.530 --> 00:23:59.759
Todd Smith: that the end user really never sees. But the Admins are getting great benefit out of it. The financial and operations side of it are getting a lot of benefit out of that. It's really meeting the customers where they are.

170
00:23:59.930 --> 00:24:03.249
Todd Smith: but not only meeting the customers, but meeting their entire

171
00:24:03.840 --> 00:24:09.449
Todd Smith: base of employees. Right? The Admins, the the users, and the folks that are signing the checks

172
00:24:11.210 --> 00:24:29.399
Bill Sutton: Bill, your thoughts on this. Yeah, I would completely agree with everything Todd just said, I mean, obviously, the ability to leverage multiple clouds, multiple resource locations. Whether you're running that in the citrus control plane versus on Prem. You know that these are things that Citrix was doing

173
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:41.349
Bill Sutton: prior to for prior to going private, and it's just accelerated since then. You know, there were some things that were in place prior to the the private privatization that

174
00:24:41.630 --> 00:24:58.030
Bill Sutton: that weren't ideal that have come back like the ability to to, you know, manage the Citrix Cloud environment from an on Prem Controller, or, you know, build your environment directly on a cloud in a cloud provider. A lot of those things have come back. And and I think this just

175
00:24:58.060 --> 00:25:04.259
Bill Sutton: kind of resonates back with the same statement made earlier, and that is meeting the customer where they are

176
00:25:04.780 --> 00:25:18.899
Andy Whiteside: well, and and Todd Todd in Bill, do you think it's fair to say that a lot of organizations are going to either have to realize that's what they need to do or they're gonna have to. They're gonna have to find a way to convince people that going in their cloud and public clouds

177
00:25:19.100 --> 00:25:21.659
Andy Whiteside: is the only path forward

178
00:25:23.040 --> 00:25:28.600
Andy Whiteside: like Citrix isn't alone here. This is Citrix just happens to be in situation where they can embrace

179
00:25:28.640 --> 00:25:31.040
Todd Smith: yes, type of concepts, whereas

180
00:25:31.370 --> 00:25:36.469
Todd Smith: we'll see if others can. So I think part of it's being driven by

181
00:25:36.490 --> 00:25:45.199
Todd Smith: the the cloud vendors that are out there are in the middle of price battles. and they're all coming up with better cost models. It seems like.

182
00:25:45.290 --> 00:25:58.229
Todd Smith:  you know, they're they're being hit from a financial perspective. But they're also being hit from a from an operational perspective of a lot of customers are prohibited from having a single vendor.

183
00:25:58.270 --> 00:26:04.070
Todd Smith: Right? You have to spread out your risk in your vendor stream, in your supply chain.

184
00:26:04.270 --> 00:26:10.970
Todd Smith: Across the board. Right? So you have to use both Aws and Google and Microsoft.

185
00:26:11.080 --> 00:26:14.019
Todd Smith: In order to spread out, mitigate that risk

186
00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:23.979
Todd Smith: not only from a cost perspective, but also from that from that risk and availability perspective. A lot of customers, the ones that built massive data centers.

187
00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:32.620
Todd Smith: those data centers are being financed over 20 plus years. That's a capital expense. That's a long term, capital expense. It's equivalent to building a building.

188
00:26:32.920 --> 00:26:41.280
Todd Smith: you you know. You don't finance that over a 3 year period, you build that out and you spent 20 years building that out. Well, that's a facility

189
00:26:41.750 --> 00:26:56.500
Todd Smith: that houses your data set right? So you need to start kind of looking at it from that investment perspective. So a lot of organizations that we were talking to have. You know, they said, we're not moving away from our on-prem

190
00:26:56.700 --> 00:27:02.469
Todd Smith: on our in our data centers. In 5 to 10 years we need to have

191
00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:04.450
Todd Smith: a solution is going to work

192
00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:22.830
Todd Smith: leveraging our on-prem investment in bursting up to the cloud as needed, or expanding to the cloud as needed.  And the cloud has become very critical in a lot of organizations, disaster, recovery plans in their business continuity, plans in their expansion.

193
00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:26.269
Todd Smith: in growth of the of the organizations.

194
00:27:26.450 --> 00:27:33.969
Todd Smith: So there there's a lot of things there that are driving this decision in this requirement for

195
00:27:34.370 --> 00:27:37.139
Todd Smith: a hybrid environment or hybrid solution.

196
00:27:39.180 --> 00:27:49.989
Andy Whiteside: So Todd Bill, the next section talks about long term citrix. It says innovation. I'm gonna add the word commitment to the space. Todd is Citrix, the most committed vendor in the end. User compute space.

197
00:27:50.780 --> 00:27:52.089
Todd Smith: In my opinion. Yes.

198
00:27:52.610 --> 00:27:53.740
Andy Whiteside: Bill, what do you think?

199
00:27:54.600 --> 00:27:57.839
Bill Sutton: I think that's true? Yes, I would agree with Todd on that.

200
00:27:58.320 --> 00:28:07.360
Andy Whiteside: Yeah, III don't. I agree right. I mean, I can't disagree with that when and to be honest, if you go back prior to a year ago, year ago, plus

201
00:28:07.670 --> 00:28:13.229
Andy Whiteside: I, Todd, would you have answered that. Okay, Todd works for Citrix. So let's make that clear first.

202
00:28:13.860 --> 00:28:16.110
Andy Whiteside: Would you have answered that question the same way

203
00:28:17.340 --> 00:28:19.280
Todd Smith: 2 years ago? Probably

204
00:28:19.500 --> 00:28:31.590
Andy Whiteside: policy. There you ended up using the word. No, and I was listening for you to say the word. Probably right? Previous answer was a definite Yes.

205
00:28:31.720 --> 00:28:33.779
Andy Whiteside: and your last answer was a

206
00:28:34.520 --> 00:28:39.750
Todd Smith: as you would, as far as to say, a probably no, but using through the word. Probably in there.

207
00:28:40.090 --> 00:28:41.010
Andy Whiteside: That's

208
00:28:41.130 --> 00:28:56.079
Todd Smith: pretty well, I think if you were to, if you were, look in the 2 year timeframe, there was a lot of things that we were doing that felt like we were forcing customers down it down a path that they didn't want to go or didn't need to go or weren't allowed to go.

209
00:28:56.520 --> 00:28:59.440
Todd Smith:  There was.

210
00:29:00.390 --> 00:29:03.070
Todd Smith: you know. There there was a lot of

211
00:29:03.600 --> 00:29:06.929
Todd Smith: kind of with that. With that direction

212
00:29:07.710 --> 00:29:19.310
Todd Smith: a lot of customers were feeling left out, and a lot of customers were feeling left out in terms of they're not. Citrix is not solving my problem that I've got. They're trying to bring in something new

213
00:29:19.400 --> 00:29:21.070
Todd Smith: that I may or may not be

214
00:29:21.490 --> 00:29:33.080
Todd Smith:  And what happened with that is the innovation that we were doing in our core products wasn't happening at the same pace of some of the newer things that were really trying to come out

215
00:29:33.420 --> 00:29:36.419
Todd Smith:  and and that really.

216
00:29:36.450 --> 00:29:46.760
Todd Smith: that really had a negative impact on a lot of lot of customers that had a negative impact on our direction.  we also got, you know.

217
00:29:46.950 --> 00:29:57.580
Todd Smith: if you look at it, we have reinvested, and we have recommitted ourselves to custom, solving customer problems. to reducing that technical debt that we had.

218
00:29:57.600 --> 00:30:00.180
Todd Smith: especially in our sea, bad space.

219
00:30:00.460 --> 00:30:07.350
Todd Smith: and especially in our in products. Like Zenzer, we had a large, large technical debt that was out there. Technical debt is.

220
00:30:07.370 --> 00:30:23.659
Todd Smith: These were enhancements that were that were requested from customers that were requested from our field based sales teams coming back and saying, Hey, customers are going to to go move away from our solution. If we don't have this innovation, or we don't change these things

221
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:29.809
Todd Smith: in in Calvin. High license in this blog, you know. 84 major client and server updates in the past

222
00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:33.480
Todd Smith: 2 quarters alone. You know, the 2 quarters of

223
00:30:33.520 --> 00:30:36.009
Todd Smith: this past year that he's looking back on.

224
00:30:36.420 --> 00:30:43.140
Todd Smith: That was an enormous amount of technical backlog or technical debt that we had that has been since

225
00:30:43.240 --> 00:30:54.380
Todd Smith: flushed out. and some of those some of those improvements allowed us to take giant steps forward in doing things like taking the web studio

226
00:30:54.850 --> 00:31:09.250
Todd Smith: in moving that to more of an on Prem model, as Bill said earlier, about being able to manage your control or your cloud environment from an on prem service that was huge. But that's going to allow us

227
00:31:09.600 --> 00:31:16.740
Todd Smith: to continue to expand on these use cases and expand on that value that we're delivering to customers.

228
00:31:17.210 --> 00:31:21.310
Andy Whiteside: Yeah, Bill, same question you, if you went back to

229
00:31:21.430 --> 00:31:29.429
Andy Whiteside: is is Citrix the most committed vendor in the Euc space, as of November 20, seventh, 2023, in your opinion.

230
00:31:29.880 --> 00:31:57.320
Bill Sutton: Yes, I believe they are. I believe they are, and I believe they have to be, and I think one of the things that that Todd was just talking about. I think if you look at the blog here the first sentence of the section kind of sums it up. In my view, where Calvin says I'm pleased that our renewed focus is enabled us to execute on current customer needs they're focused on current customer needs, you know, a year ago, 2 years ago, sure, they were focused on the customer. But where they focused on really what was

231
00:31:57.320 --> 00:32:20.480
Bill Sutton: considered current needs, and I think to Todd's point when you, when he talks about kind of kind of forcing, not forcing, but encouraging maybe strongly encouraging customers to move to the cloud when maybe that's not really what they needed at the time, I think clearly, Citrix has changed their focus. And I would probably have answered the question a year ago as a probably, but definitely as a Yes today.

232
00:32:20.550 --> 00:32:21.560
Bill Sutton: No.

233
00:32:21.610 --> 00:32:31.349
Andy Whiteside: II would have probably answered as well it used to be. I'm I'm not so sure. And and now it's a a definite right. And and there you're coming a minute ago around.

234
00:32:31.530 --> 00:32:40.890
Andy Whiteside: you know where they're focused. I think you could have said they might have said that the same things a year or 2 ago, but it wouldn't have been.

235
00:32:41.430 --> 00:32:47.229
Andy Whiteside: It may not have been the truth, or it may not have been as obvious as it is today.

236
00:32:47.350 --> 00:32:48.110
Yeah.

237
00:32:48.620 --> 00:32:51.279
Andy Whiteside: Todd, here, from now we look up.

238
00:32:51.740 --> 00:32:53.260
Andy Whiteside: What do you? What do you expect to see?

239
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:59.110
Todd Smith: I expect to see a lot of you know, a a lot more

240
00:32:59.150 --> 00:33:05.190
Todd Smith: traction in, you know, not only customer retention, but growth within our customer base.

241
00:33:05.370 --> 00:33:08.820
Todd Smith: There's going to be a lot more innovation

242
00:33:09.260 --> 00:33:15.689
Todd Smith: that we're going to deliver upon both innovation in terms of.

243
00:33:16.190 --> 00:33:22.070
Todd Smith: you know, product innovation. But the way we're the way we're dealing with customers, and especially in the support side.

244
00:33:22.250 --> 00:33:24.500
Todd Smith: Support has always been a

245
00:33:24.760 --> 00:33:34.689
Todd Smith: bane of most organizations. Existence. Right? It's it's it's something that is very hard. It's very costly. And

246
00:33:35.130 --> 00:33:38.459
Todd Smith: you have one problem, and it mitigate kind of

247
00:33:38.720 --> 00:33:53.799
Todd Smith: migrates across the entire organization, the entire customer base. So we've made a significant investment in our support organization, and that has led to a reduction in our overall support cases in in, in especially the time to resolve.

248
00:33:53.870 --> 00:33:56.440
Todd Smith: But part of that is also

249
00:33:56.680 --> 00:34:00.210
Todd Smith: we've introduced a lot of things in our support model

250
00:34:00.540 --> 00:34:06.679
Todd Smith: to make it easier for a customer to not only log a case, but also find the information faster.

251
00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:18.580
Todd Smith: And it's not just putting terms into Google search and things like that. It's actually embracing things like chat box and embracing things like interactive troubleshooting

252
00:34:18.620 --> 00:34:28.669
Todd Smith: that can be done directly from from the customer. All the way through our support organization. Right? That was something that

253
00:34:29.130 --> 00:34:30.570
Todd Smith: that we had.

254
00:34:30.989 --> 00:34:37.609
Todd Smith: We've kind of gone through the the motions of doing some of those things, but now it's it's become a reality, right? And our support.

255
00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:45.630
Todd Smith: our support scores have improved. But not only that, but it's also. you know, oftentimes people don't people respond

256
00:34:45.880 --> 00:34:52.800
Todd Smith: to to something that's that's help that's helpful. They tend to respond to things that are that have gone wrong.

257
00:34:53.460 --> 00:34:56.929
Todd Smith: and that has really kind of changed over the past the past year

258
00:34:56.940 --> 00:34:58.280
Todd Smith: it's been much better.

259
00:34:59.280 --> 00:35:10.409
Andy Whiteside: But of all the things I expected you to say, investment, your support arm wasn't one of them. But if you're taking it serious, that is one of the places that investments need to be made.

260
00:35:11.500 --> 00:35:28.769
Bill Sutton: What do you? What do you think's gonna happen over the next year. I think it's already they've already demonstrated a a a degree of innovation that that very quick innovation over the course of the past year, with a lot of the new features. You go back a few years and you would not. You know it?

261
00:35:28.800 --> 00:35:48.139
Bill Sutton: building a Citrix environment, a cvat environment, or even a daz environment or virtual apps and desktop service. Then you had to have active directory. And now Citrix has embraced other authentication methodologies, no authentic or no. You know local authentication, things that we would never have thought of before. You can now leverage Google.

262
00:35:48.140 --> 00:36:12.399
Bill Sutton: Google, you know, Google workspaces to authenticate. So a lot of those things is come back to the same old theory which is meeting the customer where they are and embracing the technology they're using and that have adopted internally and being able to leverage that to build on top of that rather than trying to replace it or trying to work around it, and I think that we'll see more innovation and partnering.

263
00:36:12.430 --> 00:36:37.510
Bill Sutton: He even describes that in here, with key alliance partners. One of them listed there, I know, near to your near and dear to your heart, Andy, service now, and the ability to integrate the this, the Citrix daz environment with service. Now to enable onboarding off boarding, provisioning so many other features that Citrix is embracing and is going to innovate on, I think, as we see things move forward over the course of the next couple of years.

264
00:36:38.760 --> 00:36:48.550
Andy Whiteside: and and what I would also probably add, is based on the new structure, the new ownership. If things need to change. they will, and they can.

265
00:36:49.260 --> 00:36:58.319
Bill Sutton: I think, much, much easier than they could in the past, because they're not beholden to Wall Street now right as much as they were before.

266
00:36:58.420 --> 00:37:07.380
Andy Whiteside: And that's exactly right. That's why I wanted to bring it up is because under big corporate world, publicly owned, or that's more publicly owned, simply.

267
00:37:07.470 --> 00:37:16.310
Andy Whiteside: it's impossible to make good decisions timely, whereas under private or even private equity. that becomes doable again.

268
00:37:17.130 --> 00:37:18.240
Bill Sutton: Absolutely

269
00:37:19.860 --> 00:37:29.229
Andy Whiteside: alright. Well, guys, thanks thanks for jumping on and going through that hopefully, people find that valuable. It's it's it's kind of been fun to watch, and it's gonna be fun to watch over the next

270
00:37:29.370 --> 00:37:47.680
Andy Whiteside: 5 to 10 years. What happens in Euc space? II know this much. It's not going away, I mean, whether it's a, you know, a a 0 trust scenario where it's just the manage browser, or whether it's legacy windows, applications or legacy windows application, including desktop. Or we're all the above

271
00:37:48.070 --> 00:37:56.910
Andy Whiteside: the zoom. Users are gonna need secure high fidelity access to their environments. And we're not like we're going away with the dinosaur over here.

272
00:37:57.710 --> 00:37:59.370
Bill Sutton: No, I certainly don't think so.

273
00:37:59.890 --> 00:38:05.059
Andy Whiteside: If the meteor gets and gets the dinosaurs in us again. Well, that's just so much.

274
00:38:05.550 --> 00:38:12.569
Todd Smith: Alright, gentlemen, while I enjoy the rest of your Monday welcome back from the holiday. And it's time to get back to work.

275
00:38:12.740 --> 00:38:13.920
Andy Whiteside: Yeah, guys, thanks.