Citrix Looks to Dominate Educational ASP Market

Citrix Systems, Inc. Thursday launched
its worldwide marketing program focused on primary, secondary and
college-level education.

Christened the “Solutions in Education,” the Citrix (CTXS)
application service offering is aimed at informing administrators,
teachers and IT professionals about the benefits of using its ASP software.

Ed Lacobucci, Citrix chairman and chief technical officer, said Citrix
intends to be the driving force behind adoption of the ASP business model
within all academic environments.

“Schools and universities face IT complexity similar to that found in major
corporations,” Lacobucci said. “Citrix can build the systems required by
schools today that also will meet the needs of tomorrow’s students and
teachers.”

“Citrix can provide educators with a financially viable learning tool to
tap the Web’s resources in every classroom and help narrow the digital
divide for students who currently don’t have access,” Lacobucci added.

Citrix introduced its C.O.R.E. Program as a cure for IT challenges faced by
primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities. The program is
designed to help educational institutions optimizing their online learning
environments.

Raymond Boggs, International Data Corporation
president of education markets research, said both K-12 and higher
education institutions are embracing technology as never before.

“Access to computers and access to the Internet are now an important part
of instructional life at all levels. IDC expects the support of virtual
communities to be especially critical in the coming years as distance
learning and the use of the Internet to connect students, teachers, and
parents both increase,” Boggs said.

“System flexibility is one key to the success of such community
development,” Boggs added. “Application server software is a technology that
enables all these elements to work together seamlessly.”

The U.S. government has been very successfull at pressing for Internet
services to public and private schools nationwide. It’s estimated that
there are more than 16,000 primary and secondary school districts with more
than 87,000 public schools in the U.S. Citrix is well positioned to tap
into the lucrative ASP education market segment in the U.S.

The new Citrix education program is designed to help administrators and
faculty members discover innovative ways to extend learning to the broader
community, and for resellers to discover new revenue streams.

Don Carte, LearningStation.com vice
president of sales and marketing, said the ASP model provides solutions for
a number of long-standing challenges within the education marketplace.

“Whether by providing uniformity of applications on all desktops across a
variety of devices and systems, or automatic upgrades across those same
desktops, The LearningStation.com can bring new approaches to the table for
solving old problems,” Carte said. “Citrix can be a vital component for the
delivery of those new technology solutions to schools, and educators as
well as students.”

For IT personnel, Citrix’s application server software enhances the
technology infrastructure with academic computing environments.

Andrew White, State University of New
York at Stony Brook
systems support specialist, said its goal is to
provide secure, maintenance-free public access to the library, which offers
open access for students and members of the community.

“We started using Citrix software over two years ago and we’re now
convinced that a centralized solution significantly improved library
security and increased our access capability,” White said. “Our tec

hnical
support calls also have dramatically decreased and we’ve minimized
maintenance costs by centralizing all administration on the server side.”

The Citrix education program also offers special product licensing options
with an educational pricing schedule for U.S. institutions.

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