Citrix Synergy is around the corner so we are excited about Citrix these days here at SiliconANGLE.com, Wikibon.org, and the new stealth team at our Wall Street ANGLE.

SiliconANGLE has initiated coverage on Citrix last quarter and now others are jumping on the bandwagon.  Why?  Citrix is booming.  Growth in the “new Internet” has created a “new school” of companies.  As a result shares of Citrix Systems Inc (CTXS) rose 11 percent after posting strong first-quarter results and raised 2011 outlook.

Summary
Citrix have great exposures right now across desktop virtualization, cloud and SaaS.  They had a call was last night so most of the press have stories about the normal data.

I see three (3) areas worth a deeper look in order to  extract the “big data” on the Citrix earnings.

1)Netscaler success

2) Strategic partnership success with Systems Integrators (SI’s) and

3) XenServer momentum.

With VMware becoming more competitive in cloud (and cloud foundry) I think people will drive Xen adoption harder as response for cloud IaaS.  Rackspsace just announced they are moving to XenServer.  On Xen pure Xen is hypervisor in 80% or more of utility clouds in the market.

Add this to what seems like virtual desktop stronghold and these guys are very strategic. They exited Q1 w/record pipe of million dollar plus enterprise desktop opportunties.  On Microsoft “progress there has been stunning”, have 50 people in field dedicated to working on joint wins w/MSFT, ~70 wins worldwide in Q1.

Three (3) Key Areas driving Citrix Systems business
Netscaler – NetScaler winning cloud business, VPX uptake is strong, SDX is very interesting

• “great qtr across the board”, good traction at highest end selling into web properties and major SPs, good cross sell activities, well >400 unique customers buying hw and sw products in qtr, virtual appliances now contributing materially, up to ~10% of netscaler mix, seeing customers starting w/MPX and moving to VPX sale, also seeing customers adopt physical appliances (MPX) and then use VPX at different tiers of the stack

• VPX line (virtual appliances) doing very well, VPX total revs up more than 300% y/y, almost 10% of netscaler license revs after only 6 qtrs in market

• “in new cloud era fast connections are assumed, strategic focus turns to service delivery. this emerging service delivery network optimized for content, context and consumerization”.
• computing services (apps, desktops, data, rich medai) accessed as on-demand services from wide variety of devices, SDX very interesting and “some new surprises later in qtr”…implies maybe something coming at Synergy??

• lot of effort around cross selling networking products, have added some technical selling capacity

SDX = “front door for enterprise data centers”

• virtualized networking appliance, consolidates security, scalability, multi-tenancy and performance
• “perfect front door for enterprise data centers and cloud providers”
• runs virtual netscaler instances on a single appliance via XenServer sw
• each VM instance delivers tailored mix of acceleratiom , scale and security based on workload
• enables more robust service delivery requirements around private and utility clouds

Strategic partnerships – SI’s are growing to be material channel for these guys, also Microsoft picking up momentum

• seeing great SI leverage, 3 of 7 figure deals came thru SIs, CSC was top performing in qtr

• had great performance from Accenture, Fujitsu, HP and IBM…pipeline achieved a new record level, looks great going forward, including this qtr

• Microsoft “progress there has been stunning”, have 50 people in field dedicated to working on joint wins w/MSFT, ~70 wins worldwide in Q1

• great Cisco traction, only 3 qtrs in here, “like what we are seeing there, closed quite a few deals and PoCs”

• just launched DT virtualization solution with Dell…their hw and svcs w/ctxs xenDT

• last year SIs were <10% of product bookings in any given qtr…in Q1 and rest of year expect this to move up to 10-20% of mix in any given period

XenServer – XenServer getting embedded into networking products for virtual networking appliances, also pure Xen in 80% of clouds and XenServer in Rackspace, with VMware as cloud enemy this could give XenServer a late life kicker

• seeing great uptake on XenServer, a “natural fremium motion”, greater contribution is in desktop business and what they are doing in networking business, now embedded in networking business and what they are doing there

• Desktop…XenServer optimal platform to run XenDT on b/c of tech embedded on both sides of API stack, seeing this staying under XenDT in at least 33% of cases, seeing big uptake in this area w/hyperV and fewer customers running on ESXseeing great uptake in cloud providers w/XenServer, Rackspace recently moved entirely to XenServer

• Xen (pure Xen) is hypervisor in 80% or more of utility clouds in the market