‘This could be a good vendor consolidation move for customers,’ one partner tells CRN.
Citrix, a business unit of Cloud Software Group, has purchased the Germany-based provider of a lean operating system and management tool for virtual desktop endpoints.
Hector Lima, co-president of the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) vendor, told CRN in an interview that the acquisition extends the Citrix platform for partners and customers to the endpoint OS.
“If you think about what we’ve done over the last 35 years, we deliver a client that then gives you access to all types of applications, whether those are web apps, published apps or VDI,” Lima said. “In the very near future, it is going to give us a great possibility to integrate that experience for our end customers, so they can have one application that lets them access all of these different types of assets from Citrix, to get access to all types of applications.”
[RELATED: Citrix Goes All In With Arrow On Some Distribution Territories]
Citrix Buys Unicon
A Citrix partner who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about the deal said he wasn’t sure how Citrix would incorporate a thin client as part of the platform, but he is interested to see where the vendor goes.
“This could be a good vendor consolidation move for customers,” he said.
An executive with a virtual desktop vendor who asked for anonymity to speak about a competitor said the acquisition shouldn’t stifle VDI growth with larger vendors such as Microsoft, but it could cause a disruption among thin client vendors.
“It could hurt IGEL in a big way,” he said. “And Stratodesk.”
Unicon’s product portfolio includes the eLux Linux-based operating system for x86 endpoints, deployed to more than 2.5 million endpoint devices across 65-plus countries. Some eLux customers have fleets of 300,000-plus endpoint devices.
Unicon’s Scout product is used for endpoint management in complex VDI environments, and the Scout Cloud Gateway (SCG) provides quick, secure connections and device management in remote environments without a virtual private network (VPN).
Like Citrix, Unicon offers a partner program, with benefits aimed at MSPs, OEMs, resellers and distributors. Services partners including 2024 Solution Provider 500 members SHI, SoftwareOne and Konica Minolta.
Unicon and Citrix have been technology partners since 2001, according to Citrix. Other technology partners include VMware, Microsoft and Zoom. OEM partners include HP, Dell and Lenovo.
Unicon CEO Philipp Benkler will continue on as Citrix’s vice president of product, according to the vendor.
Benefit To Citrix VARs
Lima told CRN that for Citrix VARs, Unicon joining the company is a chance “to bring more of their services around the center of gravity at Citrix.”
“That’s going to expand not only their professional services arms, but also their managed services arm, because they do manage that endpoint–making their lives easier and giving them tools to be more efficient,” he said.
Customers can repurpose assets and extend the life of endpoints with Unicon, he said. Lima predicts the technology resonates with customers navigating Windows 10 end of support–which comes Oct. 14 and could prove a catalystfor new AI PCs in the market.
Unicon uses Arrow as a distributor. Citrix revealed this week it plans to make Arrow the sole Citrix distributor for all channel partners in North America and Europe this summer.
The Unicon deal comes on the heels of Citrix’s purchase of Germany-based deviceTrust and Switzerland-based Strong Network, giving Citrix a boost in conditional access and cloud development environments.
Citrix also recently bought Germany-based Vast Limits, the company behind the uberAgent end-user computing observability tool. That purchase was revealed in March and has helped Citrix users with monitoring Windows Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 Cloud PCs.
The virtual desktop market continues to thrive as companies continue to use remote workforces, which grew in popularity during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Vendors including Microsoft and IBM subsidiary Red Hat have made plays to take share from legacy virtualization giants such as VMware, which has received criticism for pricing changes.
Unicon and rival IGEL Technology have come to legal blows in recent years, with Unicon taking action against IGEL over an allegation that former employees leaked company information in 2022.
