3 Questions: Mark Templeton

Mark Templeton Citrix Systems&' CEO spoke with Senior Writer Paula Rooney about how Access Essentials, developed by Microsoft and Citrix to provide secure remote access, will compete with features built into Microsoft&'s Windows Vista platform.

CRN: With Vista, Microsoft will go after small and midsize businesses that don&'t want to pay license fees to both Citrix and Microsoft. Will you position Citrix&'s Access Essentials platform against Microsoft&'s application publishing?

Templeton: You can&'t compare Access Essentials to [Vista] services. What Access Essentials becomes is an application delivery system for small and medium business, and so terminal service is only one [application] delivery service. So this is a “what&'s best” kind of story, and that applies to small customers just as it applies to big customers. Small customers may want an integrated solution that allows them simply to stream desktop apps and optimize Web applications, but in a much simpler type of package. You won&'t get that in [Vista].

CRN: What are your thoughts about pursuing the SMB market?

Templeton: I think we&'re getting a start with Access Essentials. It&'s still really, really early. We like that it is resonating well with certain types of partners that see small and medium companies as their sweet spot … customers look to partners as their IT shop, and those products make partners really effective in developing solutions for them, since small companies don&'t have as big a [technology] services budget as enterprises.

CRN: To what extent will Citrix target SMBs in the future? How important is the SMB market?

Templeton: It&'s very important. It&'s less than 20 percent of our business historically, and that&'s without having proactive programs and products and channel recruitment. Now that we have both, we&'ll get more momentum.

For the full interview, click here.