Zenprise Acquisition Strengthens Citrix's BYOD Stack
Zenprise Acquisition Strengthens Citrix's BYOD Stack by UCStrategies Staff
Citrix's announcement last week that it is interested in acquiring Zenprise indicates the company's interest in becoming a top player in the growing mobile device management market.
Zenprise is a solution provider offering secure mobile access to application and data over any mobile device. The cost of the acquisition remains undisclosed.
Citrix's vice president and general manager of mobile solutions, Sumit Dhawan, said that the acquisition demonstrates the company's need to respond to customer requirements. This will allow for a full and integrated collection of mobile applications.
Dhawan said, "We started with Cloud Gateway, an application management product for a single point of control for all apps. We are also close to releasing other mobile apps, including mobile apps for secure email, secure Web browsing apps including access to corporate intranet portals, and a ShareFile app for synchronization and sharing of files. Zenprise is key to offering the entire stack, including the mobile device management part. Customers need a complete stack instead of putting one together by themselves. With Zenprise, we will have a complete stack for enterprise adoption of BYOD (bring your own device).”
The use of applications also allows Citrix customers to work and play anywhere: “We've done that effectively with Windows apps on mobile device. With Zenprise, we can extend this to other mobile platforms.”
The president and CEO of Zenprise, Amit Pandey, said that secure mobile device management is available through his company over iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile and other major platforms.
Pandey said: “Last year, we started with SharePoint on mobile devices. Now there's no need to email a SharePoint file to yourself just so you can access it on an iPad. Zenprise is about letting users have access to apps they need while protecting corporate data.”
Technology allowing for the secure accessing of any app from a mobile device is said to be released by Zenprise in a few weeks.
Combining Citrix and Zenprise enables business users to access applications made by Citrix, corporate IT departments or third-party ISVs on their mobile devices.
Pandey added that customer choice is the most important consideration. He said: “Customers not only want BYOD, they want bring-your-own applications. A business user might go to the office and say he is using a collaboration or notes app bought in an app store. Most companies balk at that today. But we want to enable it so enterprises can work with those apps without being concerned about security.”
Dropbox, for example, is being used by corporate users to send email attachments; this is outside of corporate policies on the security of business documents. Zenprise also ensures secure policies; Dropbox can be used to allow access, whilst simultaneously protecting data.
“It's adding a layer of technology to secure the document. Dropbox is just an example. It could be any file sharing application,” Pandey said.
The main competitors are other mobile device management vendors, according to Pandey, and in particular the leader of the market, the Mountain View, California-based MobileIron: “Post-Citrix acquisition, this deal does make us the largest player in this space. Now others will have to chase us,” he said.
Zenprise's mobile device management technology is offered by various MSPs and cloud providers, and the acquisition should not affect those relationships. He said: “Citrix is already a partner with many of these companies. We have already reached out to them about the acquisition.” (CY) Link