Citrix announces Workspace Services

The cloud-based platform allows both partners and customers to rapidly build and offer desktops-as-a-service (DaaS), virtual application delivery and mobility services from any cloud. Citrix leads the DaaS market today serving over 350,000 subscribers, growing 50 percent annually, through over 1,500 service providers who offer hosted desktops and applications. Building on this momentum, Citrix is introducing new capabilities for its partners and customers. Citrix Workspace Services is a cloud-based platform that enables partners, enterprises and independent software vendors (ISVs) to quickly and simply design and deliver mobile workspaces that allow people to work better and increase business productivity, agility and efficiency. Workspace Services builds upon a full range of Citrix technologies including the open architecture of Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop® virtual app and desktop delivery, the market-leading user experience of Citrix HDX™ technologies, the most robust mobility solution with Citrix XenMobile®, a comprehensive data fabric with Citrix ShareFile® and a global customer care service with Citrix GoToAssist®.
Today, market forces are impacting the workplace, forcing organizations of all sizes to evolve to meet these challenges. Service providers and enterprises need faster ways to create business value by focusing on delivering a complete mobile workspace where apps, desktops and data services are securely delivered to any user, on any device, over any network. Citrix Workspace Services enables service providers and enterprises to focus on addressing users’ complete workspace needs rather than having to focus on the management of workspace infrastructure. Citrix Workspace Services simplifies the creation and delivery of mobile workspaces by automating the setup, configuration and management of Citrix products.

Citrix Workspace Services is able to provision and deliver across a wide range of public clouds, including the market leaders, as well as private clouds and datacenter infrastructure. Through this unique capability Workspace Services enables partners and customer to host their mobile workspaces on the infrastructure cloud or datacenter of their choice. The Citrix Workspace Services platform is built on Microsoft Azure, leveraging capabilities such as Azure App Services, Azure Active Directory and Azure Virtual Network, and is engineered for global availability, massive scalability, security and reliability. Workspace Services enables Citrix partners and customers to reduce up-front solution costs, accelerate their projects and manage their environments across multiple clouds.

Choice. Versatility. Extensibility. Experience.
Citrix Workspace Services gives partners and customers new levels of choice, versatility, extensibility and experience: the choice to use multiple public clouds, private clouds or enterprise datacenter infrastructure; the versatility to deliver a wide range of workspace services; the extensibility of a cloud-based platform for partners to build differentiated solutions; and the high-definition user experience Citrix customers have come to expect. Workspace Services provides the following functionality:
· A Platform for Citrix Partners – Workspace Services is designed as an extensible, multi-tenant platform for partners, including Citrix Service Providers, system integrators and channel partners, to deliver customer value by providing cloud-based orchestration and delivery for Citrix technology so partners can focus on addressing end-users’ complete workspace needs.

· Ability to Deliver a Complete Mobile Workspace – Mobile workspaces require more than just a hosted desktop or app. Users need a complete portfolio of services, including desktops, apps, mobility solutions and data sharing, to do their jobs. These services become the platform for enterprises to deliver a complete mobile workspace and for service providers to build a differentiated offering.

· Workspace Delivery on the Best Clouds – Workspace Services integrates with the best clouds for any number of workspace needs. It includes provisioning into the leading public clouds, private cloud providers, and the unique ability to integrate with enterprise datacenter infrastructure.

· Delivery with Citrix HDX Technologies – Mobile workspaces require the best user experience across a wide range of devices and network conditions. Only Citrix HDX technologies deliver an optimized experience for any device for use across changing network conditions.

· Unified Experience Across Hybrid Environments – By integrating Workspace Services with enterprise resources and existing deployments, customers and partners can unify the user and management experience across a hybrid cloud environment.

· Convenient Concierge Service – One-click access to a concierge from any device or app allows subscribers to get live assistance through their mobile workspaces. Built on the world’s largest on-demand support platform – Citrix GoToAssist – the concierge service addresses the critical need for supporting a superior subscriber experience.

· User-Focused Analytics –Workspace Services includes user-focused insights to analyze end-user experience, usage, environment and service performance across all locations and clouds. This gives partners and customers the ability to leverage cloud analytics to monitor both new cloud deployments and existing on-premises deployments and correlate issues across the environment.

Citrix Workspace Services will enable the rapid adoption of cloud-based mobile workspaces for service providers and enterprises using the infrastructure of their choice with the freedom to experiment and grow without the up-front fixed costs of a traditional deployment.