Citrix announced their long-awaited desktop virtualisation product, "XenDesktop", last week at their annual end user conference, once entitled iForum, now Citrix Synergy in Houston. The UK version of the event is being held in Edinburgh next week and I am really looking forward to going, partly because it's normally a really good event and partly because I get to see my sister who lives in Edinburgh.
I didn't go to Houston but I am told that the live demo of this fantastic new product, that Citrix has been talking about for years, failed rather miserably in front of the 2000-strong audience. I have since been informed however (completely off the record, I can't be sure this is true), that the reason for the software crash was not a problem with XenDesktop but with the WYSE thin client being used to demonstrate it. This was, apparently, a bug within the device's operating system that was known about before the demo but, to the full credit of Citrix CEO Mark Templeton, he never once mentioned a thing about it whilst this no doubt buttock-clenchingly embarrassing situation was panning out. Good on him for not showing up a vital business partner in front of all those delegates - I have always liked Mark Templeton, he comes across as a very genuine guy.
Nevertheless, I am sure XenDesktop will be very successful, for various reasons I won't go into now. And it looks like I am not the only one. Citrix's arch-rival VMWare appear to be extremely worried about the impact this product could have on their business. So much so, they sent out an email to their entire sales channel, the full text of which can be found on Brian Madden's website, dissing Citrix, their product, their pricing, basically everything about it.
Now, I don't claim to be a leading authority on public relations, but this email really smacks of desperation. It is not the first time they have done it either, they sent a similar missive when Citrix announced the acquisition of XenSource last August. By doing this, they come across as though they are running scared, something I don't think they actually need to be, I hasten to add. VMWare make great products, as I've said before, there is plenty of room in the market for both VMWare and Citrix and there is certainly no need to so publicly insult your closest competitor. What are we told in the most basic of sales training? Never speak ill of your competitors, it isn't professional and makes you look bad.
Perhaps VMWare wanted to take some shine off Citrix's big announcement... Perfectly understandable if they did. Citrix certainly wanted to deflect some attention back to them when VMWare went public last August and raised enormous sums of money by doing so. So what did Citrix do? They went out and spent 500 million dollars on a company with a turnover of 5 million (at most)!
If you want to rain on someone's parade, that's the way to do it. That certainly got more people talking about Citrix than VMWare and it was supposed to be VMWare's party.
VMWare - let me introduce you to someone, he's quite well-known in the UK. His name is Max Clifford and for a fee that would amount to peanuts compared to how much you raked in from all those investors a few months ago, he'll ensure you don't make these silly little blunders again.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Nick Leeson
During my visit to Channel Expo last week, as described below, I also spent an hour listening to Nick Leeson, the now infamous rogue trader and destroyer of Barings Bank. Ever since this story surfaced in 1995, I have been fascinated by it. (Not sure quite what it has to do with the IT channel but I was very grateful for the opportunity to listen to him anyway.)
For anyone who has been living in a bubble for the last 13 years, Nick was responsible for the collapse, thanks to false, covert and illegal futures trading that eventually came back to bite him, of London's oldest merchant bank, Barings. Even the Queen banked there. He spent 4.5 years in a Singapore jail, where he was behind bars, often in the not-so-inviting company of opposing Triads, for 23 hours a day. Whilst in jail he developed colon cancer, probably not helped by the added stress of his wife divorcing him. He has subsequently turned his life around, beaten the cancer, re-married and is now living a relatively affluent lifestyle in Galway. He still has an injunction against him for 100 million pounds, which he is paying back "very slowly". There was a film made about the story a few years back starring Ewan McGregor, for which he received 16,000 pounds. He didn't see a penny of that money though, it went directly to his ex-wife.
Nick was incredibly candid, embarrassed and even apologetic about the whole thing, although it still doesn't stop him making money from giving talks about it. That, for me, was the dichotomy. I shouldn't really like him but I did. A lot. Admittedly not the the most engaging speaker in the world, I found him honest (ironically), warm and thoroughly decent.
If ever anyone has re-paid their debt to society, he has. I asked him whether he regarded his escapades as a victimless crime, to which he replied that, in actual fact, there were very few victims. Those that suffered as a result of the collapse were the ones that deserved to, the ones so utterly incompetent that they gave him the freedom to do what he did. Apparently, they all now have similar roles at other banks to the ones they performed so badly back in the 90's. He hopes they have learnt their lesson.
Apparently it could never happen again. Modern-day security and audit procedures would prevent such things as the five 8s account (the account Nick set up to post all his losses to until he could pay them back) and his trades would be much more efficiently monitored.
So how the hell did Jerome Kerviel of Societe Generale manage to rack up losses of 7 billion dollars only a few months ago? Nick Leeson "only" lost 862 million pounds.
And do you want to know the funny thing? Societe Generale tried to headhunt Nick Leeson in 1994.
For anyone who has been living in a bubble for the last 13 years, Nick was responsible for the collapse, thanks to false, covert and illegal futures trading that eventually came back to bite him, of London's oldest merchant bank, Barings. Even the Queen banked there. He spent 4.5 years in a Singapore jail, where he was behind bars, often in the not-so-inviting company of opposing Triads, for 23 hours a day. Whilst in jail he developed colon cancer, probably not helped by the added stress of his wife divorcing him. He has subsequently turned his life around, beaten the cancer, re-married and is now living a relatively affluent lifestyle in Galway. He still has an injunction against him for 100 million pounds, which he is paying back "very slowly". There was a film made about the story a few years back starring Ewan McGregor, for which he received 16,000 pounds. He didn't see a penny of that money though, it went directly to his ex-wife.
Nick was incredibly candid, embarrassed and even apologetic about the whole thing, although it still doesn't stop him making money from giving talks about it. That, for me, was the dichotomy. I shouldn't really like him but I did. A lot. Admittedly not the the most engaging speaker in the world, I found him honest (ironically), warm and thoroughly decent.
If ever anyone has re-paid their debt to society, he has. I asked him whether he regarded his escapades as a victimless crime, to which he replied that, in actual fact, there were very few victims. Those that suffered as a result of the collapse were the ones that deserved to, the ones so utterly incompetent that they gave him the freedom to do what he did. Apparently, they all now have similar roles at other banks to the ones they performed so badly back in the 90's. He hopes they have learnt their lesson.
Apparently it could never happen again. Modern-day security and audit procedures would prevent such things as the five 8s account (the account Nick set up to post all his losses to until he could pay them back) and his trades would be much more efficiently monitored.
So how the hell did Jerome Kerviel of Societe Generale manage to rack up losses of 7 billion dollars only a few months ago? Nick Leeson "only" lost 862 million pounds.
And do you want to know the funny thing? Societe Generale tried to headhunt Nick Leeson in 1994.
Friday, 23 May 2008
Should I be worried?
I attended Channel Expo this week at the NEC in Birmingham. I'm afraid the show wasn't quite what I had expected. Lots of tiny computer companies trying to flog laptop cases and "funkily" designed PC housing, meanwhile trying to fend off the mass of unemployed losers taking time out from Jeremy Kyle and trying to outdo each other in the amount of freebies they can bag from the stands. Stands that companies, like ourselves, have paid many thousands of pounds for. Can anyone tell me what it is that drives these sort of people to spend hours traipsing round trade shows picking up pens just because they're free?
COMPUTERLINKS, as mentioned, had a presence there but fortunately I wasn't roped in to do stand duty - I did pity my esteemed colleagues trying to explain the ins and outs of distribution to hairy geeks from "Chris's Computers" and the like. (And yes, that is a real company, I saw the Director. And he's called Chris. I'm guessing he also covers reception, sales, pre-sales, technical support, marketing and finance too.)
Still, my real reason for attending the show was to listen to the Microsoft Virtualisation seminar, which I did. And, to be perfectly honest, I thought the chap from Microsoft, who was excellent, had simply taken the Citrix slides and put them into a Microsoft template. See what I mean? I had heard it all before and I must admit, it did make me think.
Microsoft and Citrix, as is well-known, have been close partners for years, a few reasons for which I have explained in the blog below entitled "VMWare proving the doubters wrong. For now." But Microsoft aren't just competing with XenServer, they now compete across the board.
Terminal Services = Xenapp
Softgrid = Citrix Streaming Server
Hyper-V = XenServer
Windows Vista Enterprise Centralised Desktop = XenDesktop
Intelligent Application Gateway = Access Gateway
Add in MOM, SMS and the other management-type stuff that MS have re-branded and the whole solution looks pretty impressive to me. If it does everything they say it will, it's an enormous threat to Citrix in my eyes.
There is quite an amusing term I have heard Citrites use when describing these sort of situations: they say it's "healthy co-opetition". With partners like Microsoft, who needs enemies?!
Having based my financial future on Citrix, at least in the short-term, should I be worried?
COMPUTERLINKS, as mentioned, had a presence there but fortunately I wasn't roped in to do stand duty - I did pity my esteemed colleagues trying to explain the ins and outs of distribution to hairy geeks from "Chris's Computers" and the like. (And yes, that is a real company, I saw the Director. And he's called Chris. I'm guessing he also covers reception, sales, pre-sales, technical support, marketing and finance too.)
Still, my real reason for attending the show was to listen to the Microsoft Virtualisation seminar, which I did. And, to be perfectly honest, I thought the chap from Microsoft, who was excellent, had simply taken the Citrix slides and put them into a Microsoft template. See what I mean? I had heard it all before and I must admit, it did make me think.
Microsoft and Citrix, as is well-known, have been close partners for years, a few reasons for which I have explained in the blog below entitled "VMWare proving the doubters wrong. For now." But Microsoft aren't just competing with XenServer, they now compete across the board.
Terminal Services = Xenapp
Softgrid = Citrix Streaming Server
Hyper-V = XenServer
Windows Vista Enterprise Centralised Desktop = XenDesktop
Intelligent Application Gateway = Access Gateway
Add in MOM, SMS and the other management-type stuff that MS have re-branded and the whole solution looks pretty impressive to me. If it does everything they say it will, it's an enormous threat to Citrix in my eyes.
There is quite an amusing term I have heard Citrites use when describing these sort of situations: they say it's "healthy co-opetition". With partners like Microsoft, who needs enemies?!
Having based my financial future on Citrix, at least in the short-term, should I be worried?
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Football
I had intended this blog to be purely about my professional capacity in the Citrix world but what the heck. 10 seconds of the UEFA Champions League Final on Thursday 21st May in Moscow summed up football for me.
It's widely known in my private circles that I am a big rugby supporter, always have been, and therefore have little time for football and even less for footballers. Whether someone is worth £100,000 every week is neither up to them nor the employer, market forces determine those sort of things; nonetheless, for the record, I think it's disgustingly out of sync with normality.
No, that's not the worst thing. For me, the attitude of the players towards the referee in the second period of extra time summed up this sport as far as I am concerned. A fracas ensued, in which just about every player on the pitch, and the 2 linesmen, became involved. No punches were thrown though, it was all handbags at dawn. Footballers are far too feeble-minded to actually go the full distance. However, the referee was completely and utterly swamped by the players, to such an extent I did wonder about his own safety for a second. They were like a pack of wolves. Unacceptable.
I'm not claiming there aren't any fights or there's no dirty play in rugby, far from it, but at least the referee remains sacred, untouchable. His word is gospel and no-one but no-one, whether you're 5'2 and 10 stone or 6'10 and 20 stone, defies him. Owen Hargreaves of Manchester United goading and pushing the referee into giving Didier Drogba a red card is indefensible. (Having said that, Didier Drogba deserves everything he gets as far as I'm concerned, I've honestly never seen a more dishonest, underhand, devious sportsman as he.)
And all because someone wouldn't give them their ball back.
This sort of attitude to authority is consumed voraciously week in, week out by the entire football-mad youth of this country and is, without a shadow of a doubt, reflected in the way they approach figures of power at school, in sport and in the emergency services. Bring back compulsory military service I say - and I'm not the only one. How else should we restore an ounce of respect for elders and for people in those positions of authority amongst the kids of today?
Football is, in my opinion, the single worst contributor to the gradual decay of society in the UK.
PS. Just as I finish writing this, Manchester United slot the winning penalty. I'm glad a team with cheats like Drogba in it are not Champions of Europe.
It's widely known in my private circles that I am a big rugby supporter, always have been, and therefore have little time for football and even less for footballers. Whether someone is worth £100,000 every week is neither up to them nor the employer, market forces determine those sort of things; nonetheless, for the record, I think it's disgustingly out of sync with normality.
No, that's not the worst thing. For me, the attitude of the players towards the referee in the second period of extra time summed up this sport as far as I am concerned. A fracas ensued, in which just about every player on the pitch, and the 2 linesmen, became involved. No punches were thrown though, it was all handbags at dawn. Footballers are far too feeble-minded to actually go the full distance. However, the referee was completely and utterly swamped by the players, to such an extent I did wonder about his own safety for a second. They were like a pack of wolves. Unacceptable.
I'm not claiming there aren't any fights or there's no dirty play in rugby, far from it, but at least the referee remains sacred, untouchable. His word is gospel and no-one but no-one, whether you're 5'2 and 10 stone or 6'10 and 20 stone, defies him. Owen Hargreaves of Manchester United goading and pushing the referee into giving Didier Drogba a red card is indefensible. (Having said that, Didier Drogba deserves everything he gets as far as I'm concerned, I've honestly never seen a more dishonest, underhand, devious sportsman as he.)
And all because someone wouldn't give them their ball back.
This sort of attitude to authority is consumed voraciously week in, week out by the entire football-mad youth of this country and is, without a shadow of a doubt, reflected in the way they approach figures of power at school, in sport and in the emergency services. Bring back compulsory military service I say - and I'm not the only one. How else should we restore an ounce of respect for elders and for people in those positions of authority amongst the kids of today?
Football is, in my opinion, the single worst contributor to the gradual decay of society in the UK.
PS. Just as I finish writing this, Manchester United slot the winning penalty. I'm glad a team with cheats like Drogba in it are not Champions of Europe.
The X(en) Factor
It's not often I get really excited about doing events. I have found in the past that you put an awful lot of effort in for about 15 registrations, of which perhaps 10 will turn up on the day if you're lucky. Getting end users to attend is one thing, it's a nice day out of the office for them. Getting resellers to come is another entirely - it's a day away from re-selling.
A couple of years ago, we did a roadshow for what was then a new Citrix product called NetScaler, one event was at Silverstone and the other was at a racetrack near Manchester. We spent about 5 or 6 grand in total on location hire, invites, telemarketing etc and we also had a kind of corporate identity done. This involved our agency buying a Scalextrik set, re-branding it with COMPUTERLINKS stickers etc. then having a professional photographer take exhilarating pictures of the cars speeding around, it was utterly fantastic. If I can work out how to do it, I'll put the pictures up here.
Anyway, we had about 60 registrations across the 2 events and 3 people turned up! Disappointed was not the word...
I've just sent an email out today to about 150 people inviting them to an event we are doing on Monday 23rd June featuring internationally renowned Citrix guru Brian Madden. The email has gone stir crazy, we are getting approximately one registration per minute at the moment!
Obviously it remains to be seen how many people actually turn up but, if it does turn out to be successful, I will not only be extremely pleased but may just have found out how to hold successful events. It's obviously not what you know...
A couple of years ago, we did a roadshow for what was then a new Citrix product called NetScaler, one event was at Silverstone and the other was at a racetrack near Manchester. We spent about 5 or 6 grand in total on location hire, invites, telemarketing etc and we also had a kind of corporate identity done. This involved our agency buying a Scalextrik set, re-branding it with COMPUTERLINKS stickers etc. then having a professional photographer take exhilarating pictures of the cars speeding around, it was utterly fantastic. If I can work out how to do it, I'll put the pictures up here.
Anyway, we had about 60 registrations across the 2 events and 3 people turned up! Disappointed was not the word...
I've just sent an email out today to about 150 people inviting them to an event we are doing on Monday 23rd June featuring internationally renowned Citrix guru Brian Madden. The email has gone stir crazy, we are getting approximately one registration per minute at the moment!
Obviously it remains to be seen how many people actually turn up but, if it does turn out to be successful, I will not only be extremely pleased but may just have found out how to hold successful events. It's obviously not what you know...
Tuesday, 20 May 2008
Disclaimer
In this ueber-politically-correct, high-visibility-jacket-wearing world of ours, I feel compelled to add the following:
Please be aware that all posts on this blog are strictly my own personal views and opinions only and do not necessarily express those of my employer. The product names used in this message are for identification purposes only. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Please be aware that all posts on this blog are strictly my own personal views and opinions only and do not necessarily express those of my employer. The product names used in this message are for identification purposes only. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
VMWare proving the doubters wrong. For now.
VMWare have released their figures for the first quarter of 2008 and don’t things just look mighty rosy, eh? $438 million revenue, up 69% on Q1 last year, and $48 million income, up a couple of million on 2007. The stock price has shot up again and it looks like the next chapter is now being written in what is surely the most volatile share price rollercoaster rides in recent high-tech history. Having started at $29, it ballooned up to $125 and then crashed back down to $42. All in just 8 months.
Being so heavily involved in the Citrix world (I’m new to this blog so I better identify myself as being the Product Manager for Citrix at COMPUTERLINKS, a distributor for Citrix and what used to be called XenSource), I could say that this is very bad news for those hedging their bets, as we are, on Citrix XenServer being a success. I could also do an Alastair Campbell on it and say that VMWare’s impressive growth is validation of the potential of the market and Citrix only stand to gain from that. But I’m not going to do either because, to be honest, that would be a bit dull.
Diane Green, the CEO of VMWare, claims there are only two other software companies, other than VMWare, who have been capable of maintaining 50% year on year growth or better after hitting the $1 billion revenue mark. That puts VMWare up there with the very best. And for the doomsayers of late that have been predicting the demise of VMWare because Citrix and Microsoft happen to be doing something similar, this will be a sharp wake-up call. VMWare make cracking products and they are streets ahead of everyone else in this market. Fact.
Nevertheless, the competition cannot be disregarded. Can it?
What actually is the competition then? Citrix? Microsoft? Virtual Iron? Parallels? Citrix XenServer, whilst admittedly coming on in leaps and bounds, is nowhere near where it needs to be to challenge VMWare on server virtualisation. Microsoft don’t even have a proper product yet. And as for the rest, well they will never have more than the scraps to feed on in my humble opinion, loud as they may like to shout.
So, effectively, VMWare currently don’t really have any competition at the moment. This places them (somewhat ironically, seeing as they keep pinching their staff) in a similar situation to where Citrix were a few years back. The biggest challenge is not another vendor beating you to the deal but the customer not actually doing anything at all.
There are some crucial differences, though, to the Utopia that Citrix used to revel in.
Firstly, not doing anything at all, when it comes to server virtualisation, is quite definitely the wrong decision and IT Directors and CTOs know that. Server sprawl is immense and the business case for virtualisation is rock solid. When we look back in 5 years time, we will wonder how we ever thought it a good idea to have so many servers doing so little.
Secondly, the competition is looming. Citrix dominated their SBC market masterfully, Ericom, Tarantella, Jetro and the rest of them never even came close. VMWare don’t have this luxury because server virtualisation is going to be a much bigger market. Server-based computing and thin client technology was a niche area that you either loved or couldn’t quite understand. On the other hand, virtually every company in the world that uses technology uses servers and only 6% of them were virtualised last year. Now that is an entirely different proposition altogether.
Then, thirdly, there’s that Microsoft thing…
Where Microsoft has been more than happy to sit back and watch in unadulterated glee as the millions upon millions of Terminal Services CALs (that would not otherwise have been sold) rolled in, VMWare is (or will be) in direct competition to the Redmond behemoth.
Microsoft would never bite the Citrix hand that fed it, why would they? Why would you spend your money developing Terminal Server when you can just get your little brother to do it instead and take the cash for the TS license anyway? Just ensure you give the system a perfunctory scrub-up every couple of years to make sure the anti-trust people don’t get too excited, invite Citrix to your party and anoint them as your official best friend every so often and Bob’s your uncle.
VMware is different. Microsoft doesn’t like them. VMWare are the school bully. They’ve been beating up Microsoft’s little brother and stealing his lunch.
Someone said to me recently that, whilst listening to Diane Green speak at VMWorld in Cannes this year, he was strongly reminded of Ray Noorda (RIP), the CEO of Novell from ‘82 to ‘94. Similar personalities – both are/were very intense, technical, academic. Actually both were very dry, uninspiring speakers if we’re being honest.
In the “Compete” seminar at VMWorld, my source mentioned the same sort of arguments were used by VMWare against Microsoft Hyper-V as Novell used all those years ago against NT: version 1 product, won’t be any good, will be slow, fat, unreliable, full of bugs.
Look what happened to Novell.
VMWare certainly are proving their doubters wrong. For now.
Being so heavily involved in the Citrix world (I’m new to this blog so I better identify myself as being the Product Manager for Citrix at COMPUTERLINKS, a distributor for Citrix and what used to be called XenSource), I could say that this is very bad news for those hedging their bets, as we are, on Citrix XenServer being a success. I could also do an Alastair Campbell on it and say that VMWare’s impressive growth is validation of the potential of the market and Citrix only stand to gain from that. But I’m not going to do either because, to be honest, that would be a bit dull.
Diane Green, the CEO of VMWare, claims there are only two other software companies, other than VMWare, who have been capable of maintaining 50% year on year growth or better after hitting the $1 billion revenue mark. That puts VMWare up there with the very best. And for the doomsayers of late that have been predicting the demise of VMWare because Citrix and Microsoft happen to be doing something similar, this will be a sharp wake-up call. VMWare make cracking products and they are streets ahead of everyone else in this market. Fact.
Nevertheless, the competition cannot be disregarded. Can it?
What actually is the competition then? Citrix? Microsoft? Virtual Iron? Parallels? Citrix XenServer, whilst admittedly coming on in leaps and bounds, is nowhere near where it needs to be to challenge VMWare on server virtualisation. Microsoft don’t even have a proper product yet. And as for the rest, well they will never have more than the scraps to feed on in my humble opinion, loud as they may like to shout.
So, effectively, VMWare currently don’t really have any competition at the moment. This places them (somewhat ironically, seeing as they keep pinching their staff) in a similar situation to where Citrix were a few years back. The biggest challenge is not another vendor beating you to the deal but the customer not actually doing anything at all.
There are some crucial differences, though, to the Utopia that Citrix used to revel in.
Firstly, not doing anything at all, when it comes to server virtualisation, is quite definitely the wrong decision and IT Directors and CTOs know that. Server sprawl is immense and the business case for virtualisation is rock solid. When we look back in 5 years time, we will wonder how we ever thought it a good idea to have so many servers doing so little.
Secondly, the competition is looming. Citrix dominated their SBC market masterfully, Ericom, Tarantella, Jetro and the rest of them never even came close. VMWare don’t have this luxury because server virtualisation is going to be a much bigger market. Server-based computing and thin client technology was a niche area that you either loved or couldn’t quite understand. On the other hand, virtually every company in the world that uses technology uses servers and only 6% of them were virtualised last year. Now that is an entirely different proposition altogether.
Then, thirdly, there’s that Microsoft thing…
Where Microsoft has been more than happy to sit back and watch in unadulterated glee as the millions upon millions of Terminal Services CALs (that would not otherwise have been sold) rolled in, VMWare is (or will be) in direct competition to the Redmond behemoth.
Microsoft would never bite the Citrix hand that fed it, why would they? Why would you spend your money developing Terminal Server when you can just get your little brother to do it instead and take the cash for the TS license anyway? Just ensure you give the system a perfunctory scrub-up every couple of years to make sure the anti-trust people don’t get too excited, invite Citrix to your party and anoint them as your official best friend every so often and Bob’s your uncle.
VMware is different. Microsoft doesn’t like them. VMWare are the school bully. They’ve been beating up Microsoft’s little brother and stealing his lunch.
Someone said to me recently that, whilst listening to Diane Green speak at VMWorld in Cannes this year, he was strongly reminded of Ray Noorda (RIP), the CEO of Novell from ‘82 to ‘94. Similar personalities – both are/were very intense, technical, academic. Actually both were very dry, uninspiring speakers if we’re being honest.
In the “Compete” seminar at VMWorld, my source mentioned the same sort of arguments were used by VMWare against Microsoft Hyper-V as Novell used all those years ago against NT: version 1 product, won’t be any good, will be slow, fat, unreliable, full of bugs.
Look what happened to Novell.
VMWare certainly are proving their doubters wrong. For now.
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