Monday, April 28, 2008

Silicon Valley Crystal Ball: What Next For Citrix?


One of the more persistent Silicon Valley rumours right now is that Citrix, who have been languishing for a while, especially after acquiring XenSource last August for $500m, is going to get bought by either Cisco or IBM (see here and here).

Disclaimer: I have no special information one way or the other but of those two then I'd be betting on IBM. They already rely on common hypervisor technology and have been allied with Citrix for a long time. While I get the arguments being made that Cisco is gearing up in this area, I just don't see where they could realise the value that they'd need to pony-up in order to win out. It just cries out as being an IBM deal, especially if they can get it done in a market lull.

Doubtless time will tell one way or the other but with all the activity in the virtualization space over the past months then it would make a lot of sense for Big Blue to cement their position by snapping up Citrix, if for no other reason than to keep them out of the hands of HP, Microsoft or even, dare one say, Oracle.

When will it close (if it closes)? Beats me. I have neither a crystal ball nor even a handy bed-side pyramid thingy for increased concentration!

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