Citrix achieves 20% savings with BYOD strategy
Citrix is putting its money where its mouth is and extending its in-house BYOD scheme
By Sophie Curtis | Techworld | Published: 12:23, 19 December 2011
Citrix is expanding its Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) programme, after achieving 20 percent cost savings in the three years since launch.
The savings were achieved because fewer desktop support requests and incident reports were made, as employees worldwide purchase and maintain their own work devices, according to the company. Citrix is now hoping to tailor the programme for different countries, so that it can offer the BYO programme as a default benefit for all Citrix employees.
“Implementing a BYO programme was a logical step for Citrix given our technology allows users to securely access their desktop on any device,” said Martin Kelly, vice president of information technology at Citrix. “As we continue to expand the scheme and put plans in place for the next few years, we hope to see these savings continue to grow as well as help our customers obtain similar results.”
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Citrix's decision was supported by research, which found that 73 percent of IT professionals in the UK believe desktop virtualisation will offer greater flexibility for the workforce. Moreover, 78 percent believe desktop virtualisation, and subsequently BYO, will deliver reduced IT and/or business costs.
The research was conducted by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Citrix in October 2011, and is based on 1,100 IT professionals across eleven countries.
“The financial dividends we have seen from the programme have demonstrated significant return on investment which is why we are working with our customers and partners to implement similar schemes within their organisations.” added Kelly.
It is no surprise that Citrix is touting the benefits of a BYO strategy. The company's XenDesktop and Receiver products are designed to support a BYO model by allowing users to securely access their desktops and apps from any device, anywhere.
The company also recently announced updates to its CloudGateway product line, which Citrix describes as ‘the first unified service broker,’ giving IT departments unified controls such as identity, automatic account de-provisioning, and remote wipe for data and apps stored on lost devices.
Citrix is not the only company to offer a VDI solution. XenDesktop competes with VMware's View and Microsoft's Hyper-V, and both companies are also working on mobile virtualisation products to compete with Citrix Receiver.
Meanwhile, according to Andrew Millard of Citrix's online services, the consumerisation of IT and BYOD trend is also helping drive uptake of collaboration software technologies, such as GoToMeeting and GoToAssist.
“We see that, because employees are using their own devices at work, they're being more productive and more demanding about what software and tools they get to use,” said Millard. “We are able to empower them to do what they need to do and be more productive, wherever they are and whichever device they want to use.”
