Today at Citrix Synergy™ 2009, the conference where virtualization, networking and application delivery meet, Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) announced the availability of the Citrix Receiver application on the Apple App Store. The app gives iPhone and iPod touch users access to their Windows applications and documents from anywhere. Businesses will be able to quickly and securely leverage their existing Citrix XenApp™ infrastructure to tap into the power of an agile and productive mobile workforce.
“For the 230,000 corporate enterprises that already use XenApp to deliver virtualized applications to their employees, Citrix Receiver provides a simple and ubiquitous method for accessing desktops and applications wherever employees are located. Whether they are using their desktop, laptop or smartphone, Citrix Receiver ensures a consistent, high-definition experience for accessing corporate applications, and allows IT to deliver applications as a service that is scalable and always available,” said Mick Hollison, vice president XenApp product marketing, Citrix Systems. “We are delighted to offer this capability to the millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers with the same cool user experience they’ve come to expect from their devices.”
“Citrix Receiver will enable our customers to run existing enterprise applications on iPhone while maintaining control of their corporate data and intellectual property,” said Roman Pacewicz, senior vice president, strategy and applications services, AT&T Business Solutions. “The combination of ease of use on iPhone, access from virtually anywhere via the AT&T wireless network, and the delivery of critical business data via Citrix offers a seamless communications experience.”
Citrix Receiver is a lightweight software client that resides on user devices, like PCs, Macs, and smartphones, and is the self-service user entry point to the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family. Citrix Receiver for iPhone and iPod touch takes full advantage of the innovative Multi-Touch user interface of the devices offering the ability to zoom, pan, click and scroll within documents. Leveraging a unique Citrix feature called Doc Finder, it also provides fast, one-click access to important documents stored on the corporate network. Users can now quickly find, view, edit, save and send business documents from their iPhone and iPod touch. Since these documents are stored in the datacenter and delivered over a secure encrypted link, data and applications always remain completely secure. Mobile professionals who previously could not access full-featured Windows applications from anything but a laptop will now be able to experience true mobility. Lawyers can review and edit briefs, executives can update PowerPoint presentations and physicians can access patient records or view X-rays directly from the palm of their hand, whether they are in court, sitting in an airport or away from the hospital.
As a part of Citrix Receiver for the iPhone and iPod touch, Citrix is also introducing new App Viewer technology that makes it easy to create mobile-friendly views of enterprise applications. This feature facilitates displaying just the information a user actually needs – for example, viewing dashboards with dynamic graphs and frequently accessed reports from ERP and CRM applications while in a meeting or away from a computer. Citrix has posted simple directions on how to use App Viewer with industry standard development tools to easily create custom views of enterprise applications, both pre-packaged and custom developed. The combination iPhone and iPod touch, App Viewer and Doc Finder allows users to view apps and edit any kind of business document on a small screen. With iPhone, iPod touch and Citrix Receiver an increasing percentage of business travelers may actually find they can leave their laptops behind on shorter trips. By connecting millions of users to the corporate XenApp infrastructure that already exists, Citrix is able to help expand customer use cases and provide a simplified IT service delivery model that is flexible, scalable and always available.
“Citrix Receiver on the iPhone allows access to any application delivered by Citrix XenApp. In the health arena, Citrix-delivered electronic patient records represent an increasingly significant role in this expanding market,” said Dr. Paul Altmann, Clinical Director - Health Informatics - NHS South Central & Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals. “The ability to respond to an inquiry from a colleague in real time by being able to securely log on to the EPR remotely via the iPhone and Citrix represents a major advance that I know will prove popular amongst physicians who find the iPhone one of the most attractive PDAs to use.”
Cloud-based Demo Showcases the Power and Elegance of Citrix Receiver
To demonstrate the simplicity of Citrix Receiver for users and IT, Citrix has created a public demo environment that is available to any iPhone or iPod touch user. After downloading the free Citrix Receiver app users simply click on a link to receive credentials to an open demo system located at www.citrixcloud.net. Using this demo environment, users will be able to experience first-hand the simple and intuitive navigation of the pre-loaded sample applications installed there.
The demo system is built on the Citrix Cloud Center (C3) platform and allows anyone to experience the power of the Citrix Delivery Center product family, featuring XenApp, XenServer™ and NetScaler™. The environment leverages technology from Citrix C3 partner SoftLayer and the ability to seamlessly cloudburst into Amazon EC2 for additional capacity and storage to support periods of peak user activity. This unparalleled combination demonstrates the power of a completely virtualized delivery center.
Citrix Receiver for iPhone is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.