[THIN] Article: Microsoft declares war on Cisco
- From: "Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com" <jkenzig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 07:20:12 -0700 (PDT)
Hmm..now Citrix is a competitor with Cisco??
JK Microsoft declares war on Cisco
From: http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2163150/microsoft-declares-war-cisco
Conflict to centre on the 'critical battleground' of the branch office
Robert Jaques, vnunet.com 30 Aug 2006
Microsoft's recent alliance with Citrix Systems to develop wide area network
(Wan) optimisation technology represents a declaration of war on Cisco in the
"critical battleground" of the branch office, Gartner has reported.
According to the analyst firm, the Redmond giant's tie-up with thin client
firm Citrix is the culmination of a "long-simmering rivalry" with Cisco, and
has the potential to transform the Wan optimisation market.
The comments come after Microsoft and Citrix announced an expansion of their
established partnership that will result in a jointly developed and marketed
Citrix-branded branch office box.
Gartner said that this product is scheduled to ship in the second quarter of
next year and will be based on Citrix's WANScaler product line gained through
its recent acquisition of Orbital Data, and on Microsoft's Windows Server and
Internet Security and Acceleration Server.
"Microsoft clearly considers Cisco a significant threat to its dominance in
the enterprise software market, and views the branch office as a critical
battleground for application and network architectures," stated a Gartner
advisory.
"Cisco and Microsoft have avoided direct competition until recently, but the
merging of networking, security, storage and applications made this
confrontation inevitable.
"Microsoft is launching new networking capabilities within Vista and the
'Longhorn' version of Windows Server, and is pursuing partners in the voice
arena, for example Nortel."
The analyst firm also believes that there will now be much more conflict
between Cisco and Microsoft, a battle it originally predicted in 1997.
"Microsoft is building a team of networking vendors to compete with Cisco.
Citrix brings credibility in branch office application delivery through its
Presentation Server and NetScaler products," the Gartner report stated.
"By adding Orbital Data, Citrix now has an end-to-end application delivery
family that is broader than Cisco's.
"With a rapidly expanding portfolio, good strategic partnering and
software-centric channels, Citrix is a serious competitor and potential
roadblock to Cisco's aspirations to control application delivery.
"The future WANScaler appliance promises to provide Wan optimisation, content
distribution, security and branch office services.
"When combined with Microsoft's marketing might and strategic customer
relationships, this product is likely to quickly appear on prospective
customers' shortlists once it is released."
Gartner believes that Microsoft's tie-up with Citrix will change the selling
dynamic for Wan optimisation controllers, branch office boxes and, to a lesser
degree, application delivery controllers.
"Because Cisco will not be the default choice, we believe its influence is
likely to weaken. In addition, sales cycles will are likely to lengthen, and
smaller vendors will find selling tougher," Gartner stated.
However, the analyst firm went on to predict that the Microsoft/Citrix
partnership will face "some challenges" as the published product delivery date
is "very aggressive".
Given these concerns it advises firms to continue their existing
business-critical Wan optimisation implementations because its estimates that
the Microsoft/Citrix product is 18 months away.
Jim Kenzig
Microsoft MVP - Terminal Services
Provision Networks VIP
CEO The Kenzig Group
http://www.kenzig.com
Blog: http://www.techblink.com
Terminal Services Downloads: http://www.thinhelp.com
Other related posts: