Open Software Licensing

The new model, slated to launch next quarter, will offer electronic licensing for as few as five users, providing discounts based on the size of the transaction without requiring revenue commitments, said Ross Brown, vice president of business planning at Citrix.

"It's something both end users and resellers have been requesting," said Glen Ackerman, CEO of Integration Technologies, a solution provider in Newport Beach, Calif.

Open licensing can consolidate and simplify license management, solution providers said.

"Customers can get what they want when they need it at a predictable price," said Jim Gildea, president of solution provider Aegis Associates, Watertown, Mass.

Citrix also plans to shift its incentive model later this year to reward channel partners based on the value they provide rather than on their sales volume, Brown said.

The new incentives should address ongoing competition between Citrix's solution providers and its volume software distributors, said Chris Alstrin, senior account executive at GTC Systems, a Citrix Platinum partner in San Diego.

"[The volume distributors can typically beat our price, so it's frustrating to us to add value, offer expertise, be completely dedicated and [then lose the sale,sometimes in the six figures,to a company that more or less just takes orders," he said.

Citrix, Fort Lauderdale, last week also began trimming its 3,400 U.S. solution provider base by about 30 percent, Brown said. "Our criterion was really around who is valuable to our customers and which ones help drive our business forward."

While lauding Citrix for consistently maintaining channel-friendly policies, solution providers supported the reduction, adding that margins on Citrix products have eroded recently due to competition between partners. "They just added too many partners too fast," said Bill Fistori, president of DeVA Systems Group, a solution provider based in Maynard, Mass.