PC Week: What is Citrix ICA?
Duursma: Citrix ICA is an umbrella technology for deploying server-based computing solutions to end-users. It is a key part of all of our solutions and is embedded in a broad range of thin and fat-client devices, including PCs, keyboards, telephones, kiosks, set-top boxes and PDAs throughout Australia.
PC Week: Being promoted to VP for Citrix's ICA technology is quite an achievement. How did it come about?
Duursma: Citrix's ICA technologies have been a major focus for our local R&D team as can be seen by the many significant contributions we have made to Citrix's global product lines, including Program Neighbourhood and Seamless Windows. I think this appointment is reflective of the growing importance Citrix is placing on our team's expertise and vision.
PC Week: Why has Citrix chosen a Sydney-based VP-the first Citrix VP ever chosen outside the US-rather than another US, or even a UK-based employee this time around?
Duursma: Citrix's R&D model is one of decentralisation, which allows the company to benefit from the diversity of our different teams around the world. Citrix has recognised that the Australian R&D team is producing technology that is leading the world in its innovation.
PC Week: Does moving some attention to Citrix operations in Australia mean that the company will be hiring/expanding in the near future?
Duursma: Citrix Systems Australia's revenue is growing strongly and our expansion plans include an expansion of our general business functions such as sales and marketing, as well as R&D. From an R&D perspective, we plan to increase our numbers by at least 50 percent per year over the next two years. PC Week: How closely does the Sydney-based R&D team work with R&D colleagues in the US and UK?
Duursma: All of Citrix's products are made up of technologies developed by teams around the world, therefore it is necessary that we work very closely with each other. In fact, we operate more as a global team than as separate entities.
PC Week: Which sectors hold the most opportunity for ICA?
Duursma: Citrix's server-based computing solutions are having great success in the enterprise where it is being used as a rapid deployment tool delivering applications throughout organisations with a diverse range of computer platforms.
The emerging Applications Service Provider (ASP) market also represents a huge opportunity for Citrix. ASPs manage and deliver application capabilities to businesses and individual consumers from data centres across wide area networks. We are working with service providers, software vendors, hardware OEMs, system integrators and other technology companies to develop an end-to-end server-based computing infrastructure for the ASP market based on Citrix's ICA.
PC Week: With Citrix ICA being broadly adopted by vendors including Microsoft, HP, IBM and Sun Microsystems for inclusion in new and future products, where is the technology going? What's the "next great leap" we can expect to see, hardware- or software-wise?
Duursma: We will continue to develop and pioneer ubiquitous delivery of sever-based applications to new markets, including the ASP market, in new ways through information appliances based on Citrix's ICA.
PC Week: Why should anyone still believe in thin client computing? We've been hearing about it for so long and yet it's never taken off in this country.
Duursma: Server-based computing is not just about the delivery of applications to thin-client devices, it delivers applications to a wide range of devices, fat or thin.
In fact, more than 65 percent of client devices connected to MetaFrame servers are PCs. As such, it has really taken off in Australia.
Many organisations and businesses throughout Australia have adopted server-based computing solutions to reduce the complexity and total costs associated with enterprise computing. Many of these solutions are Citrix solutions in such organisations as Macquarie Bank, Craig Mostyn Group, Film Australia, Territory Health Services, and Union Transport.
