Desktop virtualization has good scope in India

How important is APAC for Citrix as a region?



APAC is extremely strategic for us as two-third of worlds population lives in
India and China. In terms of revenue, APAC contributes a small percentage of 10

to 11% of the overall mix in each quarter. We are aiming to increase this to 18

to 20%. We want APAC to grow faster. There is a strong potential for this

growth, which is to be led by three countriesJapan, India and China. APAC as a

whole is growing at around 7 to 8%, which is more than our global rate. India

and China are higher with double digit growth.

How bullish are you about India?



The Indian market is relatively small, but we have planned big investments.

We would like to tap the new market of Desktop Virtualization (DV), which we

believe has huge potential here. Desktops are physically aligned to people and

there are a large number of people in India. We plan to increase our manpower

base from 600 to 1,000 and a lot of this will include R&D resources. We find

that India is a great place to invest from an R&D point of view because the

intellectual capital is high here.

What is your take on the scope for virtualizing the

desktop?



We are very excited about DV but the question is whether the market is ready

for it. In my opinion, all the corporate customers would like it. From an end

user perspective however, it is a different kind of thinking. Opportunity wise

there are around 1.2 bn desktops in the world and according to Gartner, around

60 mn desktops will be virtualized over the next few years. Over the last two

quarters itself; we sold around 1.5 mn licenses for DV. One of the catalysts for

DV is Windows 7, which is a great OS and it should be run on every desktop. In

order to deliver Windows 7 experience in a cost effective manner, DV is the way

to go. The issue of bandwidth is holding DV back. Any vertical that needs better

control of its environment, security and which ensures that compliance is in

place, would need DV.

Talking about competition, how do you compete with

VMware in the DV space?



DV is more complicated than server virtualization and I dont think VMware will
ever get there because it is just too complicated on the desktop. With Microsoft

and Citrix coming in partnership and offering DV at one-tenth the cost at a

higher performance, we are definitely ahead in the game as far as our product is

concerned.

John Jacob/DQWeek



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