Citrix Synergy 2011 is going on now in Barcelona. I’ll be live blogging the event here. Expect to see more information about recent Citrix acquisitions. I will be tweeting the event as well. Be sure to follow @CitrixSynergy if you are not already.

 

October 26, 2011, 4:57 am Keynote is over. Overall there were some really great things shown. Lots of tech previews to check out. If you want to view the keynote again, check out http://www.citrixsynergy.com. I still do not get the Receiver for Facebook though.
October 26, 2011, 4:35 am #CitrixSynergy connecting private and public clouds. Citrix is making it easy to add access to public clouds from your private cloud. A new “product” is announced called CloudConnectors. This is a partnership with several public cloud providers to basically allow Layer 2 and 3 transparency via CloudBridge (via NetScaler). This is kind of cool because you can seamlessly extend infrastructure into public clouds (like cloud bursting). From what I understand, you do not necessarily need a NetScaler at both ends.
October 26, 2011, 4:29 am #CitrixSynergy a demo of Windows 8 Metro is shown on stage. Receiver is seamless in this environment. Windows 8 Metro looks to be smooth with HDX and XenDesktop. Touch in Metro is working on the native device with Receiver or withing a VDI desktop using XenDesktop.
October 26, 2011, 4:16 am #CitrixSynergy HDX System-on-a-chip is being discussed. This is a strategy of working with hardware manufactures (currently NComputing and Texas Instruments) to offload high performance multimedia onto a HDX chip. This lets thin-clients leverage HDX to full potential. This doesn’t mean that Citrix is entering the thin-client market. I am not convinced on how useful this is in business.
October 26, 2011, 3:58 am #CitrixSynergy Citrix CloudGateway. This is the new direction of Citrix Delivery Services. Includes a section called StoreFront services. StoreFront is what Citrix Receiver connect to in order to present available application to the end user. This helps turn the Receiver into an iPhone/iPad/Android type experience where users connect to a store and choose which apps they want. This continues to hammer down the message that Citrix is focusing on the new workforce and the consumerization of IT.
October 26, 2011, 3:48 am Follow-Me-Data is being shown. This is built into Receiver. Brad Peterson (Chief Demo Officer) started on a Mac and created some data. This data followed him to a Windows client. Then, the data followed him to an iPad. Brad took a live picture with the iPad and it synced to all devices including an Android tablet and a Chromebook. Since, Chromebook doesn’t have a native viewer for some apps, HTML 5 was used to render. All this data is synchronized to the cloud as well. This helps solve some offline use cases.
October 26, 2011, 3:34 am #CitrixSynergy GoToMeeting workspaces has the ability to add files to a meeting. Meeting participants can make comments within the files (markups). there is a lot of potential to integrate ShareFile here as the files kept in the meeting work space have to manually be uploaded and downloaded. ShareFile could make this a lot more seamless.
October 26, 2011, 3:26 am The ShareFile capabilities are being shown. There are a lot of cool things this product can do – portal, remote wipe, Microsoft Outlook plugin (which can detect large files being attached to a message and automatically move the attachment to ShareFile to be delivered securely outside the email). This outlook feature could “potentially” lessen the need for encrypted email.
October 26, 2011, 3:17 am #CitrixSynergy – http://bit.ly/pT4QJy a Citrix Service Provider perspective on the ShareFile acquisition.
October 26, 2011, 3:15 am #CitrixSynergy talking about data because “content is king”. This should be a segue into the ShareFile acquisition.
October 26, 2011, 3:10 am #CitrixSynergy the exception has now become the rule. For example, the former exception (and now the rule) is a mobile worker that uses store apps. This again is enforcing the messages of personal cloud, BYO, and the consumerization of IT. We are now watching a video of Citrix customers enforcing this message even further.
October 26, 2011, 3:03 am #CitrixSynergy New term coined – VUCA. Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity. This message is enforcing the consumerization of IT message. This message is a good segue to the BYO. BYO-computer, BYO-device, and now BYO-cloud (i.e. personal cloud).
October 26, 2011, 2:52 am #CitrixSynergy the Cisco/Citrix alliance is being discussed. New Cisco endpoints with embedded Receiver – VXI initiative. Mainly focused on improving HDX for XenDesktop, but plans for more innovation in other areas.
October 26, 2011, 2:46 am #CitrixSynergy The acquisition of AppDNA has been officially announced. Many people predicted that Citrix would purchase them after Quest bought ChangeBASE. This is strategic for the EOL of Windows XP and making the transition to Windows 7, Windows 8, and beyond…
October 26, 2011, 2:38 am The #CitrixSynergy keynote is underway. Started with a video that mentions “personal cloud” – i.e. the consumerization of IT.