Citrix Powers the Portal

At this week’s Citrix iForum 2000, Citrix Systems Inc. announced licensing agreements with Brio Technology Inc., Epicentric Inc., Plumtree Software Inc., TopTier Software Inc. and Viador Inc. to market and demonstrate Citrix NFuse application portal software. The agreements also include joint enterprise marketing and sales opportunities as well as channel development and education.

Citrix NFuse is an application portal product that enables Windows and UNIX applications running on a Citrix MetaFrame server to be accessed through a personalized web portal by any group or user. Citrix NFuse provides organizations with greater manageability and lower costs through centralized deployment.

Portals are personalized, secure web environments that allow organizations to bring together and share content — information, services and applications – from a single location with customers, employees, partners, suppliers, etc. “In one view, you can see all the relevant info you need based on your role in the organization,” said Mark Templeton, president of Citrix, at iForum 2000. “This aggregation of information allows you to get work done more efficiently.”

The problems with many corporate portals is that people don’t spend their entire day in a browser, but split the time with email, calendars and other software, and the access to these functions in a browser-limited portal is not a very rich experience Templeton said. Citrix addresses these problems with their Vertigo technology, which embeds the full-featured application into the web-based portal. “You get all the richness of a traditional email client with the thinness of HTML,” he said.

One major objective of an enterprise portal is the consolidation of information and applications for a single point of access, Templeton said. NFuse lets companies deliver applications through a web portal without modification.

Citrix’s licensing agreement with Brio Technology Inc. covers Brio.Portal, a business intelligence portal. It delivers real-time business information to end-users, regardless of where that information is stored or where the user is located. In addition, Brio has advanced to the Premier level of the Citrix Business Alliance (CBA) – a coalition of industry-leading companies working with Citrix to broaden the scope and effectiveness of server-based enterprise computing solutions.

The licensing agreement with Epicentric involves Epicentric Portal Server 3.0, which provides businesses with the ability to deliver customized web services to their customers, suppliers, distributors and employees that reflect the private branding and look and feel of the company. Epicentric also has joined the CBA as a Premier member.

Plumtree Software and Citrix will engage in joint marketing and demonstration of the Plumtree Corporate Portal and Plumtree’s integration with Citrix NFuse and MetaFrame via a suite of Plumtree Portal Gadgets. Similar in appearance to the sports scoreboards or stock portfolios of a consumer portal, Plumtree Portal Gadgets are modular portal components that embed key information and services from enterprise applications and Internet sites — such as sales leads, industry news or e-mail messages. Plumtree Software, previously a Charter CBA member, will now participate in the CBA program at the Premier level. Citrix will join the Plumtree Partner Network as a Premier Technology Partner.

The licensing agreement with TopTier covers eBusiness Integration Portal 3.0, providing complete, personalized control over enterprise applications and data. The eBusiness Integration Portal uses TopTier’s patented technology that allows users to simpl

y “Drag and Relate” information from one application to other enterprise data sources, such as documents, enterprise applications, web sites and other data sources, creating a platform for the information to be integrated at the end user level. TopTier has also joined the CBA as a Premier member.

The licensing agreement with Viador covers Viador’s E-Portal Framework, an E-Business platform for the rapid development and deployment of Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Employee (B2E) portals. It provides a reliable, secure and scalable environment for creating highly customized portal solutions, for both Internet and Intranets. Viador also has joined the CBA as a Premier member.

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