Citrix and Siebel Systems Announce Strategic Alliance and the Validation of MetaFrame Access Suite with Siebel Business Applications

Business Wire, Sept 23, 2004

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. & SAN MATEO, Calif. -- Integration Enables Joint Customers to Easily Deploy and Provide Anywhere, Anytime, Any-Device Access to Siebel Business Applications Through a Centralized Access Infrastructure

Citrix Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:CTXS), the global leader in access infrastructure solutions, and Siebel Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:SEBL), a leading provider of business applications software, today announced that Citrix has joined the Siebel Alliance Program as a Strategic Platform Partner. Additionally, key to the partnership's success was the validation of the Citrix(R) MetaFrame(R) Access Suite and Citrix MetaFrame Password Manager as an enterprise single sign-on (SSO) solution for Siebel 7.5.3 and Siebel 7.7.

Citrix is one of five Siebel Strategic Platform Partners, an elite designation which is reserved for established industry market leaders with the ability to provide highly strategic solutions to Siebel Systems customers on a worldwide scale. This integration enables joint customers to securely, easily and quickly deploy and provide anywhere/anytime/any-device access to Siebel business applications through a centralized access infrastructure.

"We are pleased to announce that Citrix has advanced to the Strategic Platform Partner level, which signifies the value the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite brings to Siebel Systems customers," said Craig Crawford, group director of alliances for Siebel Systems. "Some of the world's leading companies deploy and manage Siebel Systems industry-leading CRM solutions using Citrix. The latest validation of the MetaFrame Access Suite not only further strengthens our partnership, but also provides our customers with additional confidence in the compatibility of Citrix solutions with Siebel business applications."

With the MetaFrame Access Suite, Siebel Systems customers benefit from the substantial return on investment that businesses achieve by more quickly and efficiently deploying, updating and managing Siebel business applications on a centralized model with minimal end user disruption. In addition, Citrix access infrastructure maximizes the value derived from a customer's existing infrastructure, including desktops and networks, resulting in faster time to value and reduced total cost of ownership. Citrix further reduces the costs of providing access to complex, heterogeneous IT environments with broad support for popular browser applications.

"Customers are always looking for better ways to deploy enterprise applications," said J. Bruce Daley, executive editor of The Siebel Observer. "Citrix has a solid reputation for making complex rollouts successful. The announcement that the Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite is now validated with Siebel 7.5.3 and Siebel 7.7 should prompt more customers to consider using Citrix in their implementations."

The proliferation of Web applications provides an opportunity to streamline application delivery and take advantage of increased reliability and performance. By deploying Web applications via Citrix access infrastructure, organizations can achieve up to 250 percent more efficient network bandwidth utilization than locally installed browsers, depending on configuration and tuning options selected. Furthermore, security breaches resulting from user error or inconsistent browser security configurations are eliminated by centralizing applications and browser security settings on a server. In addition, costs are significantly reduced through streamlined management of all client application components, including browser versions, allowing fewer IT administrators to support more users. Since Citrix supports numerous browser types, client devices and platforms without recoding applications, cost and configuration issues are minimized as IT administrators can easily manage different application versions from a central server.

"Citrix is committed to helping Siebel Systems customers both reduce the cost and simplify the deployment and administration of Web applications, and Siebel's invitation to become a Strategic Platform Partner attests to the benefits that its customers have derived from Citrix access infrastructure solutions," said David Jones, senior vice president, corporate development for Citrix. "The Citrix MetaFrame Access Suite is the easiest way for organizations to provide access to enterprise applications and information on demand, and we look forward to providing maximum value to our joint customers."

"Axtel was faced with the significant challenge of deploying diverse applications, each with its own independent software client, to a distributed network of end user systems that included Siebel 7, a Web-based application, and its sales automation module," said Andres Cordovez, Axtel's director of information technology. "The interoperability of Siebel business applications and the Citrix platform will allow us to resolve these challenges and deploy our diverse applications to over 500 enterprise and residential customers in 10 cities. By running our Siebel client over Citrix we can further leverage our centralized IT staff and infrastructure while reducing our operating expenses."