Provision Networks / Quest Software scores big time: Jeff Pitsch and Patrick Rouse join as employees!

It's about time someone stepped up to give Citrix some competition.  I think Quest can do it.

I completely agree that Citrix could use some competition to wake them up, but Quest Software couldn't ride this one home even if they mounted Man o' War.

Quest has made a living of marketing software that amounts to your kitchen's junk draw.  They don't have the first clue as to how to drive something into the upper right quadrant nor will their corporate culture grasp it.  The company is full of great talent, but their leadership operates in the dark ages.  But hey, at least you can wear shorts to work there and that makes it all good.

Honestly, I hope this is the acquisition that turns things around at Quest.  Good luck.

So now we have a guest brain on the citrix support site.  Jeff will have to assume a pseudonym and offer advice with subliminal messages. :)

http://support.citrix.com/forums/thread.jspa?forumID=75&threadID=94242&messageID=652984&#652984

Congrats to them! In my opinion, it doesn't really matter whether it's Quest Software or Citrix who wins the current market share. They are not bound to make it past 2012 anyway. Microsoft will release a comparable competing product by then. You can rest assured... Look at the trend they have been following over the last few server releases of Windows. Do you see the Terminal Services component evolving? The evolution is right there. You can't miss it. 

On the other hand, you have the evolution of the Internet. You have seen how web-based applications are evolving. The next generation of internet access and speeds is coming up in the next 3 years or so. Who is not to say that server-based computing will be replaced by web-based applications? This sounded crazy a few years back.. but not anymore. I predict that web technologies will achieve the same level of performance as your standard C-language-based application by 2015 or so, if not sooner. Of course, this is going to happen a few years from now but it will happen. There is no stopping it. Also, the advantages of this approach are enormous... No license costs for accessing the application - that is no license cost for the medium to access the applicattion, multi-platform support wihout porting source code. You write code once then work from anywhere on any platform. Centralized management, centralized data, centralized everything...

Ok, my opinion being stated, I think that it is a good thing that Quest software has a competing product against Citrix. This is a good thing. Now, I don't think that Quest software is prepared to offer tough competition in this area, at least not for another 2 or 3 years. In the meantime, a lot can change. Like I said, we are in for lots of surprises after 2010. 

I heard the Mainframe was going away because of the PC.........

And I know of a lot more Brilliant industry engineers that have started working at Citrix than have left. Most

Good observation but not an entirely accurate analogy. Whoever said the mainframe was going away because of the PC back then was not really clear on what the PC was compared to the mainframe. The fact is that both PCs and mainframes server two completely different purposes. For example, a PC runs the software you use to make orbital calculations with while the mainframe runs the Vogayer spacecraft which had gone past the orbit of Pluto. Most people would think that speed would be the major difference here. That's not the case. It turns out that modern PCs are many times just as fast as mainframes, sometimes faster. The key advantage of mainframes is the quality of the hardware, the fault tolerance, the meantime between failures of components, etc. You can add hardware on the fly - add/remove memory and CPUs, update kernels, update firmware - all without ever turning them off or disrupting the applications they run. Also, mainframes are designed to handle very large amounts of data.

Will supercomputers replace mainframes some day? Well, maybe. Maybe not. It's simple a matter of how advanced our technology is and how cheap it is to produce a supercomputer vs. producing a mainframe. It's really all about the money and practicality. 

While I currently have no opinion about this topic, I do agree that web technologies are great and they offer countless advantages over any other technology. We will definitely see more and better performing web applications in the future. Heck, it's even happening now. Our company uses three main applications to run the business. Two out of the three mission citrical applications, their vendors announced that for the next version due out in 2008 Q2, they are going to be purely web-based applications. They are offering a non web-based client for a surcharge and with little support. All their efforts are now going to the web versions. And these are huge applications from huge vendors. So it is already happening. 

Wow,  to say that Citrix/Quest will not be around in a few years because of web applications is a little short-sighted.

Legacy apps will still be around for many years to come.  Just drop by a hospital one day and see how many 16-bit applications they still have in production?  What are the chances those apps will be web-based in 4 years.

Many companies have tried and failed to go Web Based (Cerner for example).  And many of the applications that are web based (Peoplesoft, kronos, etc) run like crap on a local lan let alone via a VPN connections.

I'm not sure if you've been following what Citrix has done over the last 18 months or seen a road map of the next 12 but you should have noticed that Citrix has branched out into Application Delivery which includeds Web Applications as well as Desktop Delivery.

If we do feed into the theory of all web based apps,  then Citrix has that market covered too.  You've got Netscalers, AAC, CAGs, Wanscaler, Password Manager (for all those credentials the web applications have to keep), Provisioning server (great for large WEB farms too), XenServer, XenDesktop and Edgesight.

Even for a moment that a large company somehow manages to migration all their apps to web-based applications,  how will they deliver those applications to end users?  Internally it's a no brainer, but what about a remote user? a home user? a Kiosk?  a Mac? Mobile device?  What about browser support?  We all know Microsoft doesn't play fair in this arena?  Is everyone at home suppose to follow the corporate migration to IE 7?  What about those who use Opera, Firefox, Safari? Oh, wait, IE 5.5 because they are still running Windows 98.  An easy supportable solution is Citrix!  So now we are right back were we started with Seamless apps and/or Virtual Desktops (DDI/Presentation Server).  Then there are remote call center users.  Do you think end users will let the company install big brother/spyware applications on their personal PCs?  Oh, also forgot... What about those different web apps that require different and sometime conflicting versions of Java or Flash?

As far as Citrix licensing costs goes,  it's negligible.  It's a small piece of an overall larger budget.  The LOB, MRP, ERP, EMR, whatever licenses typically costs more than the access infrastructure hardware, licenses and services combined.  If your not use Citrix or Quest,  you'll still pay to licenses for your VPN and Load-balancers.  It's been a really long time since I've had someone complain about licensing costs on a sales call.  Most, if not all, like features of AE, PS Enterprise and more so Platinum.

Granted, there are million and one things I think Citrix SHOULD be doing (from a technical, marketing and end-user perspective) but I have to give them a lot credit,  they've done a remarkable job over the last 12 months.   I got the chance to speak with a few of the CTPs at iForum and from what I understand the CTP member have made huge inroads with Citrix at all levels.  Perhaps Brian can write something up? Success and failures?

Anyways,  somewhere along the lines this thread got jacked and turned into a Citrix and Quest bashing forum and it should be about Jeff and Patrick.  So in turn, Congratulations! and good luck!  Both of these guys will be successful in whatever endavor they choose.

Joe 

Web applications are the future of apps. Your argument is sound but you are failing to see the advances in connectivity. By 2015, as the previous poster indicates, web technologies would have changed. Hardware will allow download speeds well beyond current DS3 44.7 for the home user. Bandwidth consumed by these apps would be completely negligible at these speeds.

Then there is wireless technology which will easily reach the 1 GBit range by 2015. Delivery of applications will not be a concern. 

I guess we will have to see what happens. I think that application delivery via the next generation of Web will be a dominating market in application delivery in the next decade. There is no doubt about that.

Ok, going back to the main topic here, I would like to wish Jeff and Patrick the best of luck. I have no doubt they will excel greatly.  

I can't speak for Jeff, but there were a few reasons I made the decision to work for Quest.  I have a good relationship with Peter and Paul Ghostine, and had considered going to work for them in 2006.  Now that Provision Networks is a Division of Quest Software, we'll have a lot more resources to develop and market Virtual Access Suite.  I did not join Quest because my consulting business was not doing well, or because I had any grudge against Citrix.  On the contrary, my consulting business was going very well, and I have (up until now) had a great relationship with Citrix.  I made the switch because I saw an opportunity to help mold VAS, without the worry that it wouldn't survive, now that it has the financial backing of Quest. 

All of those easily handled with the next generation of web technologies. You guys are thinking now, your minds are set on the now. Think futuristically. Future web technologies cannot be compared to what we have now. It's like comparing a car from the 1920s to a car today with GPS Navigation, MP3 players, automatic pilot, self-correcting tires, etc, etc. Remember computer technology grows at a rate that is almost exponential.

I am not implying that we won't have apps anymore. Far from it. We will have apps for a very long time. But these apps will become legacy more and more as they give way to web-based applications. Only time will tell... 

I am sure you both got a big salary, signing bonus with stock. Nothing wrong with that.

You will be wanting to leave within 2 years. It is frustrating to work for the underdog. It is a big upstream battle which will take its toll as you feel like a 2nd class citizen. MS/Citrix has a giant hold on the SBC market. Provision/Quest may gain 5-10% market share given 2 years. MS has the total market share as usual with TS whether you use Citrix or whatever. Citrix may lose 15-25% of their market share when Windows 2008 and the new TS comes out.

Whatever you do - keep your prices at half of what Citrix charges. Do not force your customer to buy bundled software. Each package should stand or fall on its own merits. I do wish you well. Competition is good for all of us. Your opportunity will be on Win2008 in which you should have a giant marketing campaign.

Let me jump in here......the crazy thing is that Jeff was getting mad while defending Citrix and the shortcomings of the Citrix product/company/decisions. Now he jumps to Citrix competitor while being a Citrix VIP? Perhaps he saw the (green) light. :)

These blogs are good for learning different perspectives from different people. Everyone may have a valid perspective - right or wrong from your vantage point.  

I talked a bit with Jeff about his maybe job change a wihle ago. Since he has his own company and would give that up. But hey this is a great change for those guys to get the tools they like more in the spotlight.

PS: all those who post under guest account I don't like that either :) register and show your name it is so easy....

Whatever happens, I would like to congratulate them. All that really matters is that they will be working with the latest and greatest technology. Ultimately, that is all the counts.

It's all Microsoft, my friends. Take a look at Terminal Services over the last few releases of Windows and see that the product has evolved greatly - both the client and server components. I predict, just as another poster did above, that Microsoft will gain a bigger market share of application delivery with Windows 2008. Let me clarify something. Microsoft already has all the market share anyway because the Terminal Services platform is the foundation on which all these SBC products sit on including Citrix and Provision Networks/Quest. What I mean is that with Windows 2008, they will gain a larger chunk of the SBC market solely with their Terminal Services platform (without Citrix or Quest, for example). That means that if I want to deploy an application delivery environment, I can consider using Windows 2008 alone without other add-ons such as Presentation Server. Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services is a big improvement over Windows 2003 Terminal Services and a great improvement when compared to Windows 2000 Terminal Services. At this rate, the next generation of Microsoft Terminal Services products are more than likely to be better and better, leaving less room for other competitors. In 2 or 3 years, Microsoft will gain a huge market share of the SBC world, meaning exclusively Microsoft and no other add-ons. Does that mean that Citrix and Quest will be dead in this market? Not at all. I think they can sucessfully focus on other areas such as virtualization and web-based application delivery as well as single sign-on solutions, to name a few. 

Therefore, unless a huge and unexpected turnaround occurs and Microsoft Terminal Services products turn out to be terrible performers, I think we can safely assume that Microsoft will dominate this area in a time frame of 2 to 4 years. It's so easy for them to do this, really. They own the source code for the Terminal Services core and they own the source code for the entire OS on which Terminal Services runs, including the kernel. The possibilities for them are endless. Having these in their control, they can do things that both Citrix and Quest can only dream of.

". . .I think we can safely assume that Microsoft will dominate this area in a time frame of 2 to 4 years."

Welcome to the forums, Leonardo.  A little history lesson. . .people have been saying the above since 1996 about Citrix in the SBC market.  Guess what?!?  It's 2008.  Every time Microsoft releases a new server version, people like you, analysts and the press write the quote above. 

It's companies like Citrix, Provision Networks, etc. that add value to Terminal Services that really makes it production ready (unless you are a 20 person shop).

The same holds true for virtualization.  Companies like VMware have redefined what virtualization is and Microsoft is playing catch-up.  Will Microsoft dominate this area in 2-4 years because they are building portions of it into their operating system?  I don't think so.  It's much more than a browser!

Microsoft is a great company, has very smart employees but is also very slow moving.  This allows much more agile companies to get a head start and stay ahead as long as they have the engineering expertise and sales expertise to remain on the cutting edge.

Companies like Citrix have proven to do this, as I said, since 1996. 

Microsoft is interested in growing the SBC market, not pushing everybody else out. I agree that the percentage of "pure" Microsoft TS installations will grow, but I believe the total number of installations of all the players will grow as well.

I've written a short piece on my blog to help you determine if Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services is good enough for you or if you need more: http://ericomguy.blogspot.com/2007/12/are-windows-server-2008-terminal.html

I've also written another item where I explain why Microsoft is not out to capture the market from Ericom / Citrix / Quest: http://ericomguy.blogspot.com/search?q=don%27t+get+it

I thought they hung around here all day watching the forums, waiting to answer everybodies questions?  Congrats to both of you.

I have seen Jeff get a little snippy, but it is always with a "Guest" that is too lazy to search for an answer. Instead of searching this site or using Google to try to find the answer, they ask the same question that has been answered 4,000 times already.

Even if he is a jerk he knows his stuff, which is a lot better than the number of other jerks I work with that know nothing.

". . .I think we can safely assume that Microsoft will dominate this area in a time frame of 2 to 4 years."

Thank you. I am familiar with this history and you are right, of course. Now, Microsoft is showing an interest now that they have not shown in the past. The Terminal Services product is evolving. It's only going to get better and better. They will get some things wrong at first but they will correct them later. The percentage of pure Terminal Services environments will grown in the next 2 - 3 years. And it will continue to grow more and more. Citrix and competitors know about this. That's the main reason Citrix is focusing on other areas on which Microsoft is further behind.

I have been working with Citrix since the early days and obviously with Microsoft as well and I had never said that before. However, now it applies. Now they have acquired a deeper interest than before.  

I am not sure how Microsoft "have acquired a deeper interest than before.".  Could you elaborate?

Their core engineering efforts around Terminal Services has stayed the same.  The team has not grown.  They have a relatively new program manager on TS that came from Sun.  Their core commitment seems pretty much in line where it has been.  They even chose not to go forward with "Bear Paw" and keep that functionality for Windows Server 2008.

Where they seem to be showing deeper interest to me is around virtualization.  Anything and everything to go against VMware they are pushing forward.  The fact that their beta around virtualization and the hypervisor came out early shows their interest and commitment to make a stand in this area.

I would say they are looking to partners to grow the TS market for them.  Sure, they have more features in Windows Server 2008 but those features equate to the MetaFrame 1.8, XP product line.  For many companies, that will be fine and it gives the opportunity for more companies to try TS.  But as more companies try TS and become hooked on it, they find out they need more features to make it truly functional for them.  As I stated before, this gives true partners like Provision Networks and Citrix the oppotunity to build functionality on top of TS and expand the market even more so.

Microsoft will take more market share, however, you will see companies like Citrix and Provision Networks continue to grow in this space since they need the "base" Microsoft to grow as well for them to succeed!

Why do you think companies like Citrix pushed so hard to have Terminal Services built into the core server operating system rather than a stand alone version like NT 4.0 Terminal Services Edition?  Because, this allows every customer who buys Windows Server as a potential customer for them without them having to buy something else on a server OS side!

Contrary to what you may think, Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite is NOT an underdog in the VDI space, as "our" (now that's different) solution is hands-down more complete than any other "broker" on the market.  It just so happens that for < 1/3 the price of a CPS Enterprise License you get all of the TS and VDI features that are all managed from one console, that actually works the way one would expect.

I went to work for Provision Networks because I have a great relationship with the Peter and Paul Ghostine (founders of Provision Networks), and hold them in high regard. I can say with complete honesty that there is no way I would have left my consulting to go to work for any other application delivery company.  If anyone ins interested in what we are doing, feel free to contact me at  MyFirstName.MyLastName@quest.com.  My current territory is the Western United States and Canada, but I'd be happy to talk to any of you, regardless of your location.

This should be an exciting year.

Will VMWare just buy them out if they make enough progress.....

Accroding to this "connection Boker Shootout" Provision Networks certainly offers the most advanced solution.

http://www.freewysemonkeys.com/site/modules.php?name=News&new_topic=8

this links to the full article

http://www.freewysemonkeys.com/site/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=62

I don't think that's a realy possibility in the near future, as Quest is not a small company and has 3000+ employees.  In addition to all of the other management tools that Quest has that do AD and Exchange Migrations, AD Management... they also own VizionCore which has products like ESX Ranger and a whole line of VMware tools and Invirtus which has VM packaging, optimization and portability solutions...

I love this technology and feel like the guy that is taking his tricked out Corvette to a show to display for all the gearheads to go "ooh, aah".  I'd be more than happy to give anyone who's interested the short or long tour of what Virtual Access Suite does.

Another year has ended. We did a "year in review" article in 2005 and 2006 (not sure what happened