This year marked the seventh Citrix Summit event I have attended since I joined GTRI. Over the years I have had the pleasure of watching Citrix grow as a company and GTRI grow to a top tier Citrix Platinum Solution Advisor.
The amount of time I have spent working closely with Citrix on all levels of the organization was even more impactful this year as it marked the formal return of Citrix CEO, Mark Templeton. At this time last year, Mark was planning to retire and step away from the business. As a partner, it was a very welcome announcement when Mark shared he was staying on as the CEO without an announced end date.
One thing that Mark drives through the organization from the top down is a fanatical focus on working WITH partners. This was the second year that Citrix held their Partner Summit in tandem with their Citrix Sales Kickoff for internal “Citrites.” Having partners in the same sessions and training as the Citrix sales teams really does extend the feeling of partnership to a level many other companies have yet to match.
Several exciting announcements came out at Summit this year including XenMobile 10, XenServer 6.5, and updates for Citrix Workspace Cloud. Much of this was revealed earlier to my coworker, DJ Eshelman, and me at the Citrix Partner Technical Expert Council (PTEC) that preceded the summit (more on that below).
As for the summit, the most exciting (re)announcement and demo for me as a Federal engineer was the integration of FrameHawk, which Citrix acquired last year, into the Citrix X1 receiver. The resulting technology can support people anywhere on the planet from the South Pole (been there, done that, got the t-shirt) to a Humvee in the desert and all places in between. The X1 Receiver demoed a completely functional Citrix session with up to 50% packet loss! Even as I’ve moved into management, the engineer inside of me is still alive and well so the ability to work across that level of packet loss was very impressive. Whether you’re someone like me trapped in an airplane 30,000 feet in the air or a park ranger trying to stay connected in the remoteness of one of our amazing National Parks, the potential is exciting.
In a perfect example of how Citrix integrates their partners into their technical strategy, DJ and I sat on the Partner Technical Expert Council (PTEC). This year was my fifth (or sixth, they blur together over time) PTEC and they are always a very fun event. The goal of PTEC is for Citrix leadership and product management to get more insightful feedback from the top technical minds within the Citrix community. PTEC spans the Americas and EMEA so the range of ideas and business impact is fantastic. In addition to listening to feedback from the top minds who are out there installing Citrix’s products in a range of environments, we as PTEC-ers are given a voice in the long-term roadmap of the Citrix product family. As would be expected, PTEC is a very confidential event, but having a voice in what needs to be prioritized by developers to better serve our client base and enable mobile workstyles is very rewarding.
As a side note, DJ and I were also honored to accept the “2014 Partner Marketing Excellence Award” presented to GTRI from Citrix. The award was a surprise for our marketing team, and another example of how much Citrix appreciates its partners.
Once again Citrix Partner Summit 2015 was a great event and a wonderful experience, even if it was held in Las Vegas, which is very near the top of my least favorite places on earth.
