The next
BriefingsDirect thought leadership panel discussion focuses on how expert user communities around technologies
and solutions create powerful digital business improvements.
As an example, we will explore how the
Citrix Technology Professionals Program,
or CTPs as they are referred to, gives participants a
larger say in essential strategy initiatives such as enabling mobile
work styles.
To learn more about the CTP program and
how an ongoing dialogue between vendors and experts provides the best
end-user experiences, we're joined by
Douglas Brown, Founder of
DABCC.com in Sarasota, Florida;
Rick Dehlinger, an Independent Technologist and Business Visionary in Sacramento, California
; Jo Harder is the Cloud Architect at
D+H and an Industry Analyst at
Virtualization Practice in Fort Myers, Florida, and
Steve Greenberg, President of
Thin Client Computing in Scottsdale, Arizona. The discussion is moderated by me,
Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at
Interarbor Solutions.
Here are some excerpts:
Gardner: We hear so much nowadays about
user experience. You might say that you, as a
community-based organization, are the original user experience provider.
What is the CTP program as a user group and how ultimately does your
user experience translate into improvements for the Citrix community and
ecosystem?
Brown:
I've been a CTP since the conception of the CTP Program, and within the
Citrix Community since 1997.
What's neat about the CTP Program and the Citrix
Community in general is that we're able to bring a bunch of great,
talented people together, and then in return, take that combined
experience and knowledge and share that with other people.
What
was interesting and what got me into the community way back when, was
the fact that there was just no information. You were just really out on
your own trying to solve problems. And when we were able to
then put that in the community, we all exponentially got better.
What I've found through the Citrix Community in general, the
Citrix Users Group that
Citrix has recently started, and the CTP Program is that you're always
better together. That's the biggest takeaway for me from not just the 10
years of CTP, but 15 or 16 years of being in the greater Citrix
Community itself.
Gardner: Steve, how well and effective does this advocacy role work? How much traction are you getting?
Greenberg:
It's amazing how well it works. Doug referred to the old days. We had a
1997 to 2007 era, where you didn't have the feedback loop, and products
evolved slowly. We'd see a new product release and ask why they did
that. So, this passionate group, because of the Internet, because we're
all kind of little freaks in our little neighborhoods somewhere around
the world, all found each other and come together with such a passion.
We haven't calculated it, but it's in excess of 1,000
years of hands-on experience between this group of 50 or so people. It
works, and Citrix has come to value it. Other companies are following
the model and developing community programs. It's really invigorating to
learn something from the true end user, the customer, and bring it back
to headquarters and see the products evolve and change.
Brown:
It's really a 360-degree type of program. It's not just for us; it also
benefits Citrix, and then, of course, everyone, the customer and the
end engineers, what have you.
Gardner: As was mentioned, we're in this era of
social media,
and people can be their own publisher and they can be an earphone and a
megaphone at the same time. So Rick, do you feel like you're
representing a large group, and how do they communicate to you what
they're feeling?
Much broader audience
Dehlinger: I do feel like I represent a pretty large group, especially when you start wandering the halls of
Citrix Synergy.
It’s like a college or high school reunion that happens every year. I
definitely feel like we represent a much broader audience.
We
(the members of the CTP program) also have people who represent
perspectives from various locations across the world, different industries,
industry functions, different customer bases -- even different seats in
the ecosystem -- the partner community, end user, customer, and other
technology-provider companies.
In terms of communication, some of the tools have
evolved over the last 10 years. Steve made a good point. I hadn’t really
thought about the fact that we have two different eras. The era of the
last 10 years has really been one of greatly increased communication and
transparency, and that's one of the things that the CTP program is
fantastic about.
[Interesting editorial note: shortly
after the inception of the CTP Program in 2006, a couple of the founding
CTP’s – Brian Madden and Rick Dehlinger – wrote blog articles
essentially calling Citrix out for being closed off and not showing any
thought leadership in the industry.
Then Citrix
CEO Mark Templeton
got the message loud and clear, and reversed the policy against
Citrixites blogging. This was effectively the turning point between the
eras Steve Greenberg mentioned, and the first big impact the CTP’s had
on Citrix and the industry.]
Steve had mentioned that a
lot of the other vendors are starting to use this (CTP Program) as a
model to build their community programs around. This group of people is
very passionate about Citrix Technologies and passionate about touching
the lives of others. This combines the two of those (passions) and puts
us behind a closed door with the opportunity to have a very real
conversation and communication with the leaders, developers, product
managers at Citrix.
We have impacted some very
substantial and positive change in Citrix -- helped them stop going down
some roads that were very disastrous and recover from some decisions
that started to be disastrous or were dead ends -- and they ultimately
improved it.
We continue to be inspired by what they bring out and put in front of us as a possible vision; it’s incredible.
Greenberg:
And to Doug’s 360-degree comment, we continue to be inspired by what
they bring out and put in front of us as a possible vision; it’s
incredible. Just so you understand, we're usually locked in a room for
two full days, approximately 10 to 12 hours, a couple of times a year,
and it gets deep. It’s like an inside family having a family discussion
that gets real hot, but it's two-way.
Perhaps at
first, it was us saying, "You have got to fix this stuff," but now it's
inspiring to see what comes out, that they touch the community and say,
"We're thinking about this; how would that work?" It's really, really
cool.
Brown: I like the fact that Steve mentioned it’s really two different eras. Prior to the CTP Program, and I
was around when they started this, we really had to push something like
this for Citrix. A typical corporation back then was not about outside
feedback per se. They did not blog; there was no social media. It was a
very controlled message.
Nowadays, obviously they need to control the message, but it’s just wide open. It’s a wide -open world out there today.
Interactive, wide ranging
Gardner:
Jo, you're like a focus group in a sense, but interactive and
wide-ranging in terms of your impact and getting information from the
field. So as a focus group, what did you accomplishing recently at
Citrix Synergy 2016?
Harder: Let me step back and say that we're under
NDA
with Citrix. These closed-door discussions that Steve mentioned are
very private discussions. The product managers go into what's happening,
what they're thinking about for future products, and that's really the
basis for those discussions.
I never really thought about us as like a focus
group, but we are. It's really great that we can give feedback to each
other. Because we have such varied experiences and expertise, there are
some products that I know really well that the person sitting next to me
might touch once a year. So we have complete variety in the group. It's
really great to be able to have those discussions as a focus group, if
you will, and to be able to provide that feedback to the folks at Citrix
and really to each other as well, because we do learn a lot from each
other.
Gardner: Because Citrix has so many
different lines and different products, they have inherited things
through acquisition, they have built things organically, no one user
consumes them in the same way. What are you seeing in terms of adoption?
What would you say is the most interesting part of Citrix’s solutions in this particular day and age?
Dehlinger: The most interesting thing for
me and in our little focus group is community representation. I tend to
be one of the ones that advocates very heavily for the cloud, and for
increasing the pace of evolution, helping drag the traditional Citrix
enterprise customer base further into the new world that we live in. For
me the most exciting stuff has definitely got to be the cloud.
The evolution of Citrix’s Cloud Services, now called
Citrix Cloud,
and all that stuff underneath it, is fantastic. It’s monumental, not
just for the consumer base, but also for Citrix, because it gets them
into the world of rapid prototyping and rapid evolution, consistent,
evergreen products and services, and also starts to put them into a
different world, where it's cloud-based consumption and pricing.
Every day, every week, every month, every year, you have to continue to prove your value and improve your value service.
Every
day, every week, every month, every year, you have to continue to prove
your value and improve your value and provide a high quality level of
service. If you don't, you're cut off; the customer has the opportunity
to walk away.
One of the things that's most exciting about
that for me is the opportunity for Citrix to evolve into the cloud first
world alongside Microsoft. If you look at any of the traditional
enterprise technology vendors that are out there, they've been selling
based on a capital-expenditure model into the enterprise.
The customers go spend all these big bucks up front; these vendors’
entire ecosystems - their sales teams, even their product development
cycles - they’re based off these big buys and long deployment processes.
There's so much of a company (that revolves around up-front capital
expenditure and long deployment cycles), and the entire ecosystem gets
tied to that.
Then, you look at the polar opposite end
of that; that is the cloud, where it’s consumption-based pricing, the
attributes that I mentioned a little bit earlier.
Adoption patterns
Gardner:
So it could be quite interesting on adoption patterns. We could be
seeing all sorts of new models popping up, and that could be interesting
for companies as well as the end user organizations.
Dehlinger:
In my mind, it increases the transparency on both sides. Citrix knows
and understands who is using what, and what they are not using also. The
customer has an opportunity to vote with their dollars, not just once
upfront when they are seeing all the stars of the sales pitch, but on a
monthly or a yearly basis.
That's actually the most exciting part to me, because Microsoft has made that pivot now, with
Office 365
and Azure and all that product family. They've brought their ecosystem
around and they're showing the world now that it's possible to evolve
from being a traditional enterprise software/ technology vendor to being
a cloud service provider.
What
I see as the future of Citrix and of the community is Citrix getting
over that hump themselves and really getting into it. They have
reinvented themselves many times over the years.
So,
it's exciting for me. What I see as the future of Citrix and of the
community is Citrix getting over that hump themselves and really getting
into it. They have reinvented themselves many times over the years.
Gardner:
Steve, thin-client computing, always an interesting solution, but tying
that to any device, any cloud -- what do you see are some of the most
interesting developments?
Greenberg: To me, it's that push forward, and it’s the new
CEO Kirill Tatarinov
making a strong statement that we're going to the cloud, as Rick says,
taking it forward. But the most exciting thing for me, because day in
and day out I architect and implement design, is to take this suite and
to fit it to the organization. Every organization is different, and the
best part of my job is going in and learning a new organization and what
it is they do and how they do it. Inevitably, something Citrix is doing
makes that better.
Now, as Rick said, we just have
more options. If this organization needs cloud, it’s the best delivery
model. Perhaps they're distributed around the world or some other
factor, and now they can do it. They have Citrix behind them casting the
vision.
So it’s the flexibility, it's the power and
excitement that you get from moving at the speed of the business. It's
not IT saying no, not IT saying, "Well, I can't do that new product line
because our system is blah, blah, blah." If we need to move quick,
throw it in Azure. Let’s get on to that new offering.
Harder: Say "yes."
Gardner: Jo,
virtualization
has never been as prominent as it is now. What do you see from the
virtualization perspective with the new products and the new embrace of
virtualization at multiple abstractions?
Tying in security
Harder:
I'm looking at it from the banking sector, because that's what I live
and breathe. I'm looking at it from security, compliance, everything
that comes along with the finance industry. I look at that probably a
little bit more cautiously than most, but what I find pretty interesting
is that Citrix is really tying in security end-to-end.
Some
of the sessions here at Synergy have talked about the whole security
piece. You want to be progressive, but you have to do it very securely.
That's one of the pieces that I'm really embracing from a virtualization
standpoint.
From the standpoint of finance, there
should be no data on the workstation. If somebody were to walk into a
bank and steal that client device, they should not be able to walk off
with any Social Security numbers, no
non-public personal information (NPI),
nothing of that sort. That's what excites me about virtualization and
tying that together, the way that Citrix has all the moving parts.
In
the future, the next step for the banks is getting into wireless,
getting into mobility. Citrix is very well-poised for that. So, the
future is bright.
In the future, the next step for the banks is getting into wireless, getting into mobility. Citrix is very well-poised for that.
Gardner: So, security was the original big use case for
VDI,
nothing on the client. But now clients are everywhere. So it's really,
“How do we get the data from the edge and to the edge securely.”
Douglas,
what are some of the key points from your perspective in terms of the
Citrix product line and how that impacts users that you represent?
Brown: That's a good question. I'm a
XenApp
baby. I see the cloud as the real, true information highway. It's the
enabler to allow us to bring things to market quicker. XenApp is that
ultimate tool to then give access to the applications anywhere, any
time.
I don't care if it's 2016, with all the stuff
that we do today, or if it's 1999, at the end of the day, I have never
met an end user that comes into the company and says, "Gee, I can't wait
to use Windows 10," or "Gee, I can't wait to use that new
Cisco
Core Router they just bought." They don’t come into work and say, "Oh
no, I have to do a spreadsheet today." They don't even talk about Excel.
With all these different technologies we're bringing
around, be it the cloud, or mobility, or whatever, back to the user
experience piece, Citrix is able to give the end user a better, faster
time to market for them. At the end of the day, they're able to work
better from any place, any time.
I've been living a
lot in Sarasota, but also I commute to Berlin, Germany. It’s sort of an
interesting commute, but it doesn't matter where I live, and this is the
same story that we've said for 15 years.
It's not
about a new story; it's just about bringing more components to make
that, to fulfill that destiny of a better user experience. What's IT
there for? It’s to enable the users to do their jobs better, and
ultimately, that's what Citrix is about. Everything else is just fluff.
Everything else is just the machinery.
Network intelligence
Gardner:
Rick, when we think about changes in Citrix over the past couple of
years -- and there have been a lot of them -- one of the things that
strikes me is that they seem to be much more interested in strutting
their stuff as to what their network intelligence capabilities are.
There's a lot more discussion of
NetScaler and
how that integrates to mobility, security, big-data analytics, and
cloud. Do you agree with me that the NetScaler and the intelligent
networks component are more prominent, and how does that play into the
future?
Dehlinger: NetScaler was, by anybody's
measure, one of the best acquisitions Citrix ever made. They got some
fantastic technology and brilliant talent. Some of the things that we've
been able to do with NetScaler in our tool bag, as we're out solving
problems and helping customers take things to the next level, is just
mind-boggling.
I'm thrilled at the change. It seems
like they finally started to figure out a better way to both communicate
what NetScaler is and its role in this whole game. You asked me about
the
Microsoft-Citrix
relationship a bit earlier. Some of the stuff that Citrix is doing now
(in that partnership) to start incorporating and leveraging the
NetScaler and its unique layer of visibility between the user and the
applications - will enable some some really amazing new capabilities.
NetScaler was, by anybody's measure, one of the best acquisitions Citrix
ever made. They got some fantastic technology and brilliant talent.
I
think it's fantastic that they finally found the language. NetScaler is
starting to get its feet underneath it, although you could argue it
already has its feet underneath it; it’s been a billion dollar-plus
business for Citrix for a couple of years now.
Gardner:
Jo, how about you in terms of security and in the banking sector in
particular, intelligent network services, something really impressive;
important or what?
Harder: Just to expand on
what Rick said, I think what Citrix is doing with NetScaler is great.
Some days, I feel like I don’t fully understand, and I'm immersed in
these technologies, but then you learn something else that NetScaler can
do for you. There is more, there is more, there is more. It’s in there,
and it’s a matter of finding out exactly how to best use it, and then
going ahead and using the products. With NetScaler, I totally agree with
Rick; the sky is the limit on it.
Dehlinger:
Well, NetScaler used to be the realm of the packet trace junkies. Load
balancing is the easiest thing that people can use to describe what
NetScaler does, but that whole world was just fraught with massive
acronyms, crazy technology, terminology, standards, and stuff that (for
the normal human being or the business person in particular) was just
mind-boggling and baffling.
It’s great that Citrix is
finally finding some language to be able to demystify a little bit of
that, and show that underneath all that mysticism and the support for
all these crazy new fancy
TLAs and acronyms, here is some really amazing powerful business value there just waiting to be unlocked and leveraged.
Gardner: Steve, mobile work styles as opposed to mobility or device or
bring your own device (BYOD)
-- how far do you feel that your community contacts have gotten in that
direction of a mobility style change rather than simply doing something
with a smaller device in more places?
Transforming organizations
Greenberg:
That's a great question, because I think this particular group has been
at the core of this for some time, and we have taken some very notable
large organizations and completely transformed them.
People
work from home. People work on a multitude of devices. I can be sitting
at the desktop in the office, grab a laptop and go jump in a cab, take
my phone, and there is that seamless experience. We really are there. At
this point, it’s just a matter of getting it more widely infiltrated,
getting people aware of what they can do.
To this day,
although it seems old to us, I still go into new client sites and
opportunities and say, "You could do this," and they say, "Really? I
didn’t know I could do that." It’s there, but now the society is
catching up, if that makes sense.
Now that you can transmit data securely, when it hits your phone, you're working on it natively.
Gardner:
It also seems that some of the file-share demonstrations and
announcements show the benefit of the whole greater than the sum of the
parts, when you can integrate with cloud, with devices. Any thoughts
about the power of an integrated file share rather than just the plain
vanilla one-size-fits-all type of cloud-based file share?
Greenberg:
That's the final layer that makes this mobile work style a reality.
Before, if you could remote in the XenApp style that Doug was referring
to, you could get your job done. But now that you can transmit data
securely, when it hits your phone, you're working on it natively.
I
go into the subway and the signal drops. Well, that file is there and I
can edit it, sign it, get my signal back, and go. It has taken that
virtualization mobility to a level now where it can travel and it can be
seamless.
Gardner: And that’s an intelligent
container. So, if your requirements around privacy or security mean that
you have to have control over what that session is and does, you can
get that.
Douglas, how important is that intelligent container when put in the context of an intelligent network?
Brown:
Extremely important. It's important from every aspect of the business.
Nowadays, we're able to do those things where we have never been able to
in the past, at the level they are at now.
It can’t
be understated how important those components are. It comes down to
maturity. The technology and the vision have been there -- or the vision
has been there, and the technology is coming around. Now, with
technologies such as that, it's matured, and then we're able to achieve
all of our goals, from business, and to end users.
New capability
Greenberg: Citrix demonstrated at Synergy 2016 a new capability that wasn't there before. We're all familiar with the
Dropbox
model, where I can send a file, but once you send it, it’s out there in
the wild. What they showed today was sending a file and then changing
its status. So, even though that person had received the file and looked
at it, when the status changed, they could no longer see it. That’s the
home run. That’s the piece that was not part of this capability before.
Harder: I tweeted this morning that this new capability really propelled
Citrix ShareFile
into being the file-sharing solution for business. There are a lot of
other solutions out there, but they're really not suitable for business.
They don't provide that level of security and a signature signing that
enables. Think about the security impacts of that, the legalities. They
have it covered. There's a lot more coming. Once some of the states
start to add how the digital signature can be incorporated as the
notarized signature, wow.
This
new capability really propelled Citrix ShareFile into being the
file-sharing solution for business. There are a lot of other solutions
out there, but they're really not suitable for business.
Gardner:
Many business processes really do get that mobile style of work as a
result, and rather than just repaving cow paths, you're really doing
something quite new and different.
Before we sign off, I
would like to allow our listeners and readers to get more information
on the Citrix Technology Professional Program. If they're interested in
learning more, maybe taking some role themselves, where should they go?
Dehlinger: Definitely start with the
CTP page on the Citrix website. That's a great place to find out more about this group and what they do. However, look at the
Citrix User Group Communities
out there. There are a lot of fantastic people present. We (CTP’s) are
blessed by having the opportunity to be able to represent a big base,
but in a lot of localities around the world, the Citrix User Group
Communities have been doing some fantastic things, and making a
difference locally.
Gardner: Sort of a federation of groups around the world.
Dehlinger: Absolutely.
Greenberg:
I would add, blog, tweet, turn out for user groups, come out to
Synergy, come out to Summit. If you're one of the reseller partners,
make yourself known.
We 're a community of
almost-crazy enthusiasts. We have a ridiculous level of interest and
passion. We have a tendency to find each other, and we're always amazed
to see new people come from a place, a country, or a business we never
heard of with new solutions.
A great event happening
today is the Geek Speak tonight. We have done a GeekOvation program,
where people submit their projects and their work and come up and get
recognized for it and have a little contest. There are endless
possibilities. Just get out there and start communicating.
Dehlinger: Participate!
Harder: And have fun.
Brown:
In a couple of weeks I'm going to be going to Norway with Rick for one
of the best and oldest Citrix User Groups around the world, but that
advocacy, is only halfway done, programs and other things for people
looking to get into the CTP Program or just sharing knowledge in
general.
Start up a blog, have some fun, share
knowledge. I've always said, knowledge is not power; power is in
dispersing that knowledge.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Get the mobile app. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Citrix.
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