Citrix Announces First North American and European NFuse Elite Customers; Citrix Fast Track Channel Partners Driving Early Sales

Business Wire, July 17, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS), a global leader in virtual workplace software and services today announced the first North American and European customers for its new access portal product, Citrix(R) NFuse(R) Elite. Air Liquide America, Alstom, Crompton Corporation, The Echo Design Group, Mid America Health, William F. White International Inc., and Whitney, Bailey, Cox and Magnani, LLC will all be implementing the product.

"We're very excited about the customer interest we are seeing in NFuse Elite," said John Burris, senior vice president of worldwide sales and services for Citrix. "Early sales, spurred by the efforts of our Fast Track Channel partners, appear to be indicative of the market we identified for access portals. We are pleased that our customers are adopting our vision of the virtual workplace by acquiring NFuse Elite."

Air Liquide North America's current Citrix implementation supports 5,000 employees, providing access to a range of applications including Oracle 10.7 SmartClient ERP application, Maximo, a maintenance application, Tivoli Netview, and Labware LIMS. Like many Citrix customers, Air Liquide has deployed Citrix MetaFrame(R) with NFuse Classic and Citrix Secure Gateway to give users secure Internet-based access to client-server applications. Now, working in conjunction with ThinApse, a Citrix Business Alliance(TM) (CBA) Platinum partner based in Vancouver, the company is rolling out an NFuse Elite access portal after evaluating the technology preview earlier this spring.

"Air Liquide personnel from our 220 North American facilities get secure application access from any Web connection using Citrix MetaFrame and NFuse Classic," said Louis Gilbert, director of data center operations for Air Liquide. "With our initial 500-seat deployment of NFuse Elite, we'll be building upon our investment in Citrix technology, providing our users with data-driven alerts and access to the applications and information sources they need to be more productive."

Alstom is a global specialist in energy and transport infrastructure with a strong track record in technology innovation. The company is a long-time user of Citrix technologies to provide IT services to 60,000 users in 15 major countries, including Microsoft(R) Office, SAP, Project 2000, Visio2000 and MetaPhase. Alstom has a target of continuously improving the quality of IT services it provides to its staff, customers and suppliers around the world.

"We have been extremely pleased with what we have achieved so far using Citrix' NFuse Elite technology preview," commented Rob Jones, IT Services Development Director, UK at Alstom ITC. "As an internal IT services provider, we appreciate being able to offer relevant, personalized content to anybody within the organization. It has taken us weeks rather than months to integrate role-based information with our existing MetaFrame line of business applications into a single Web-based point of access. This, in turn, means that we are able to provide our employees with increased flexibility and mobility, helping to improve efficiency and overall productivity."

Crompton Corporation, a global producer and marketer of polymer products and specialty chemicals, is working with Execute, a Citrix Solutions Network(TM) Gold Partner, to deploy a virtual workplace based on Citrix NFuse Elite. Crompton's new access portal will make available personalized sets of applications and content to over 1500 employees - whether they're working from the field, at home, or in one of the company's 30 European locations. With NFuse Elite, Crompton personnel will save time and effort by having secure anytime, anywhere access to their core business applications in their own language, including almost all SAP modules, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Office, and a field-trial application that will be deployed over a wireless GPRS network to HP iPAQs.

"Having been a long time user of Citrix and currently implementing MetaFrame XPe, we've been working towards giving our employees secure Internet access to their applications using Citrix NFuse Classic, so we knew that the Citrix model was right for our needs," said Warren Jones, IT Manager, Europe, Crompton Corporation. "When Execute showed us NFuse Elite, we realized it would drastically reduce the time and cost of building and maintaining a secure, personalized access portal that would be easy for our staff to use - wherever they work."

New York-based women's fashion and home accessories design firm, The Echo Design Group became the first Citrix NFuse Elite customer on June 3, 2002, the day the product launched. The firm is working with CBA Platinum Partner DataLan to deploy an access portal that will give its outside sales agents personalized access to the specific information and applications they need to effectively represent the company. It will also provide the firm's overseas vendor partners with immediate access to product design images and specifications, saving shipping costs and accelerating the production process.