Citrix wins Microsoft Partner of the Year Award for breakthrough office systems software deployment

Citrix was selected from a highly competitive field of thousands of Microsoft partners for delivering innovative access solutions built on Microsoft technology to healthcare services specialist Beverly Enterprises, among Citrix's 180,000 enterprise customers. Microsoft presented the award, Citrix's first in the Information Worker category, at a ceremony in Boston, Mass.

By standardizing on the Citrix Access Suite, Beverly Enterprises reduced its IT operating budget by $10 million, from $28 million to $18 million, over five years. Beverly Enterprises originally had a decentralized system in which each of its 400-plus U.S. locations managed its own IT environment. The distributed systems were difficult and costly to manage, and presented a potential risk to data security. Beverly turned to Citrix Systems for help building a centralized solution based on Citrix Presentation Server™ and Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003.

To break out of the cycle of costly upgrades and diminishing application performance, Beverly Enterprises decided to centralize its IT environment. The company was able to use existing client hardware, but deliver applications to them remotely from a central data center. Beverly achieved this by standardizing on a combination of the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating system, including Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services, and the Citrix Access Suite which builds on the capabilities of the Microsoft Windows Server System. After deciding that Citrix Presentation Server best addressed their application deployment needs, Beverly Enterprises chose to implement the entire Citrix Access Suite, including Citrix Access Gateway™, Citrix Password Manager™, and Citrix Presentation Server. The solution provides users with secure access via an SSL/VPN network using the Citrix Access Gateway, enterprise single sign-on and password management capability with Citrix Password Manager, as well as application deployment through Citrix Presentation Server to Beverly's user population.

In addition to reducing the IT budget, the company has significantly reduced help-desk calls and labor hours, while improving IT responsiveness and boosting staff morale. Having a standard desktop of applications makes deployments and training easier; the initial rollout to 7,000 employees at 70 facilities took only one week and generated only 35 help desk calls.

"We've seen a tremendous amount of innovative solutions developed and delivered from our partners this past year," said Eddie Amos, senior director, Global ISV Group at Microsoft Corp. "We applaud Citrix Systems for their innovative use of Microsoft technologies to meet the needs of our mutual healthcare customers and we congratulate them on this worthy recognition."

"Citrix and Microsoft continue to work together to provide customers with the best access experience, service, ease of deployment, manageability, security, and return on investment," said Antione Aguado, Regional Manager, Citrix Middle East. "Beverly Enterprises is an excellent example of a company that turned those benefits into cost reductions and an improved IT environment for its employees."

"Through our relationship with Microsoft, we have found a common goal in increasing ease of use and customer comfort, while developing total solutions to address the growing technology needs of industries and homes across the globe. Learning from international examples, Citrix and Microsoft have also worked closely in the Middle East to deliver effective infrastructure and business solutions. Definitely, this award stands testimony to our close relationship and various joint efforts across the globe, and we are sure that the region will continue to enjoy the benefits of integrated solutions, easy access to technical information and local support from Microsoft and Citrix,"

added Antione Aguado, Regional Manager, Citrix Middle East.