User:16912 Rhiannon/Citrix History

Early history
Citrix was founded in Richardson, Texas in 1989 by former IBM developer Ed Iacobucci with $3 million in funding. Following its initial setup and development, Iacobucci moved the company to his former home of Coral Springs, Florida. The company's first employees were five other engineers from IBM that Iacobucci convinced to join his team. Iacobucci served as chairman of the company and Roger Roberts became the CEO of Citrix in 1990. Citrix was originally named Citrus, but changed its name after an existing company claimed trademark rights. The Citrix name is a portmanteau of Citrus and UNIX.

The company's first product was Citrix Multiuser, an extension of OS/2 developed over two years. Citrix licensed the OS/2 source code from Microsoft, and developed its own Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol for Citrix Multiuser. Multiuser allowed multiple users working on separate computers remote access to software on a server, even from computers not built to run OS/2. Three days before the product launched in 1991, Microsoft announced they would be switching from OS/2 to Windows. The switch made Multiuser nearly unusable without significant changes to make it compatible with Windows or DOS. The company discussed closing in 1991, but investments from Intel, Microsoft and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers among others, allowed the company to work on a new version of Multiuser.

Multi-Win version 2.0 was released in 1992. It was compatible with DOS applications and allowed up to five users. In 1993, Citrix released a new remote applications server, WinView, which had the ability to run DOS and Windows applications. By 1994, the company's yearly revenue equaled US$10 million.

The company launched WinFrame, a multi-user operating system based on Microsoft’s Windows NT, in 1995. The new product allowed up to 15 users and was the first thin client for Windows.

Rise in popularity
Citrix had its initial public offering in December 1995. The company's share price doubled from $15 to $30. During the mid 1990s, Citrix became the leader of its growing industry with very few competitors, and the company's revenues doubled year over year between 1995 and 1999.

In 1997, during negotiations to extend licenses of Windows NT 4.0 source code to Citrix, Microsoft stated it would develop its own competing software to WinFrame. Citrix stocks dropped 62 percent after the announcement. Following weeks of discussions, Iacobucci was able to persuade Microsoft to agree to license Citrix technology for Windows NT Server 4.0, which resulted in Windows Terminal Server Edition in 1998. This agreement allowed Citrix to keep its position in the marketplace and be NT 4.0 compatible. Citrix also earned $75 million through the agreement, along with a royalty arrangement that was valued at approximately $100 million.

Citrix released MetaFrame 1.0 in conjunction with Terminal Server Edition. Due to weaknesses in Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), Terminal Server Edition worked best using the ICA protocol developed by Citrix and found in MetaFrame. This meant that Citrix technology was purchased and installed on most machines running Terminal Server Edition.

In 1997, the company opened a new headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It also opened offices in Sydney, London and Paris that same year. In 1998, Mark Templeton became the CEO of Citrix after serving as vice president of marketing. Also in 1998, it licensed its ICA protocol to IBM and Key Tronics. Citrix licensed its ICA protocol to Motorola for use in digital wireless handsets in 1999.

During 1999, the thin-client model Citrix used became a software trend and the company's customers increased to 15 million. Major clients included Sears, AT&T, and Chevron. A sudden drop in stocks in 2000 led to Iacobucci leaving the company and CEO Mark Templeton being demoted to president and senior executive officer. Templeton was later reinstated in 2001.

Expansion
In 2001 Citrix acquired the Sequoia Software Corp. for $185 million. That same year it released MetaFrame XP, a new platform using MetaFrame technology. This was later rebranded by Citrix as Presentation Server, in 2005.

On July 9, 2002, Citrix announced a 10% job cut. At the time the company employed about 1,900 workers. After the announcement the stock hit a five-year low.

Citrix acquired ExpertCity, a provider of remote desktop products, in December 2003 for $225 million in cash and stock. The acquisition was the largest for the company up to that date. Through the acquisition, Citrix gained ExpertCity's existing products GoToMyPC and GoToAssist, and ExpertCity became the Citrix Online division of the company. In 2004, the company introduced Citrix GoToMeeting.

Between 2005 and 2012, the company acquired over a dozen companies that allowed them to expand in new markets. Citrix acquired acceleration hardware maker NetScaler in 2005, which allowed the company to offer optimized application delivery. The company entered the server and desktop virtualization market with the purchase of XenSource in August 2007. Citrix expanded cloud and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings in August 2010 with the acquisition of VMLogix. In February 2011, Citrix entered the European Software as a Service (SaaS) market with the acquisition of Netviewer.

The company became a leader in IaaS after the acquisition of Cloud.com, provider of cloud infrastructure for companies, in July 2011. Citrix began offering VDI-in-a-box to small and medium businesses with the acquisition of Kaviza in May 2011. The company acquired technology for cloud-based file sharing and storage through its purchase of ShareFile in October 2011.

In May 2012, Citrix acquired Virtual Computer, maker of intelligent desktop virtualization. The technology is used in the company's XenClient Enterprise edition. Citrix entered the mobile video and telecom markets in June 2012 when the company acquired ByteMobile. Also in 2012, the company acquired Zenprise. Zenprise's Mobile application management (MAM) technology was released as XenMobile in February 2013.

In 2007, the company opened a headquarters in Silicon Valley. In 2008, the company changed the name of its Presentation Server product line to XenApp. Also in 2008, Citrix announced an expanded alliance with Microsoft on desktop virtualization solutions. On January 29, 2009, Citrix announced that 460 employee positions would be cut, comprising 10% of its workforce. In August 2010, Citrix announced a partnership with Google to bring the company's products to Chrome OS devices.

Citrix acquired Framehawk in January 2014 in order to use the company's technology to improve the delivery of virtual desktops and applications over wireless networks, including cellular, where speed and quality may be poor.

On January 29, 2015, Citrix announced that 700 full-time and 200 contractor positions would be eliminated. This constituted about 10% of its workforce. The cuts were expected to save between $90 and $100 million a year. Two hundred of the layoffs occurred in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where the company is headquartered.