Today, More Than Ever, Citrix is the Right Choice for the iPad!

This blog originally posted to http://blogs.citrix.com/author/benjaminb/ on March 9, 2011:

Today VMware announced the availability of their very first View client for the industry leading Apple iPad™. That could be seen as a competitive shot at Citrix but I see it a different way entirely: VMware has just sent a strong message to their customers that Citrix and the XenDesktop solution is the best choice for virtual computing!

For over two years Citrix has been evangelizing and delivering on a vision that empowers IT to evolve into an applications and desktop service provider and frees end users from the shackles of a locked down corporate desktop in favor of choosing their own devices. An important component in the Citrix strategy is Citrix Receiver. Citrix Receiver is a freely downloadable software client that provides secure access to Citrix XenDesktop infrastructure from any device, anywhere. As part of this strategy, Citrix Receiver has natively supported the Apple iPhone for two years and the iPad since its introduction last year. In addition, Citrix customers have native Citrix Receiver support for Android devices – including support for the Android tablet distribution (Honeycomb) – RIM Blackberry smartphones, Windows mobile devices, and forthcoming webOS devices from HP and Chrome OS notebooks from Google. This is in addition to providing secure native support for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux support for desktops and thin clients.

Citrix Receiver provides a unique and easy-to-use interface for subscribing to desktops along with Windows applications and cloud-based SaaS apps all with an end users corporate credentials. In addition Citrix Receiver, already in use by millions of end users on today’s most popular devices, provides native touchscreen controls optimized for the capabilities of the particular platform including multitasking and touch screen enabling Windows apps on the iPad. The experience – simple, intuitive and consistent across the multiple devices – is one of the most important differentiators of the mature Citrix Receiver solution.

It’s important to remember that providing desktop access is only part of the end user challenge; secure access to Windows applications, data and cloud apps along with desktops provides the most powerful and comprehensive end user solution. The Citrix Receiver user interface includes an app store for subscribing to and accessing enterprise applications and desktops. By building an application store user experience, Citrix Receiver builds on a user interface that is already well known to consumers. This is particularly true for Apple’s end users who have downloaded over three billion apps from the iTunes app store.

Receiver is only part of the Citrix story. In addition to providing industry leading Virtual Desktop infrastructure – supporting all of the broadly adopted hypervisor technologies, including VMware’s ESX and Citrix XenServer – Citrix also provides the broadest range of virtual computing options for customers looking for more than just a server-hosted desktop. Citrix is the only one-stop solutions vendor for all models of application and desktop virtualization including application virtualization, streamed apps and desktops, and client side virtualization solutions.

Another critical part of the Citrix virtual computing solution is the Go-To suite of products including GoToMeeting, which has been available for nearly a year on the iPad, and the recently introduced GoToMyPC. As a matter of fact GoToMeeting is fully integrated in the Citrix Receiver for iPad distribution for the most optimal end user experience.

As IT and end users alike consider the impact of tablet computing devices on their application portability and mobility strategy there is only one vendor that seamlessly supports all mobile devices – smartphones, tablets and desktops – across all operating environments, with an optimized end user experience. Millions of end users have already downloaded Citrix Receiver!

At the end of the day, don’t take our word for it. Read about some of our happy customers for yourself:

Kaweah Delta Healthcare District (California) and Derby Schools (Kansas) both profiled on Citrix iPad At Work

Or hear from Chicago’s SNR Denton/Sonnenschein Law Firm directly on YouTube!

Significant Citrix Receiver for iOS milestones:

• Citrix Receiver for iPad was available on the iTunes App Store on Day One of the initial release of the iPad on April 3, 2010;
• Citrix Receiver for iPad has had nearly 500,000 downloads since April 2010, placing it in the top five free business apps available on the iPad.
• Citrix Receiver for iPhone was released in October 2008 and has generated more than 700,000 downloads since it was made available from Citrix in late 2008. As with the iPad Citrix Receiver is one of the top free business apps available in the iTunes App Store