Ireland at forefront of Citrix's accelerated growth in revenue

Citrix, a provider of access infrastructure software, is this year set to break the $1 billion (€781 million) turnover threshold - a feat achieved by only 24 other software companies throughout the world.

According to Richard Jackson, its newly-appointed managing director for Ireland, UK and South Africa, Ireland is at the forefront of its growth in revenue, with a 50 per cent upswing in this market last year. "The growth, for us, in the Irish market is bigger than anywhere in the world," says Jackson.

The company, set up in Ireland in 1999, has quietly nestled into this country's top 10 software providers with 90 employees that account for 12 per cent of its EMEA workforce. This has seen Ireland becoming the main support centre for EMEA and moving from tech support to an integrated solutions centre.

Although associated with enterprise companies, Citrix has now reached out to the SME market with Citrix Access Essentials aimed at organisations with under 75 employees.

Access software enables a user to remotely experience the same features they have on their desktop in an office environment. "People now have several devices such as laptops and PDAs with which to access their information. So there is a need to allow this access but also to control it. You have to make sure access to information isn't given to people who don't have the right privileges for it," says Jackson.

Fraser Kyne, product specialist at Citrix said: "IT was designed as an enabler to business, not to slow it down or to add cost. We want people to define what sort of access they want and we have to respond to that and come up with a solution for them and we can do that as fast, securely and at a low a cost as possible that's the vision."

Traditionally, Citrix's products were aimed at access from a client server configuration. With companies, however, beginning to use desktop and web-based applications Citrix has moved into this space to support these different technologies.

"We need to have a solution for every type of technology out there. If we can't build it, we'll buy it," says Jackson.

Web-based application delivery is where Citrix sees the market going, predicting that, by 2008, web-based applications will overtake the more traditional client-server setup; with all applications potentially, in the near future, moving to the web.

With this in mind, one of the new technologies that Citrix recently unveiled was Netscaler, a product that speeds up internet traffic by using compression technology enabling a real-time remote experience using web applications.

"It's all about access," says Jackson.

"If we can get people access to their information, then it doesn't matter what is at the backend."

Citrix customers include the HSE, the Irish Prison Service and Meath County Council. Its key markets are government, healthcare and it is achieving a growing presence in telecommunications.