Conference 7.286::digital

5177.0. "Will there be a "bag" left to hold?" by CSC32::D_DONOVAN (SummaNulla(The High Point of Nothing)) Mon Mar 10 1997 13:00

	I was reading Note #5175 and remembered this article in this
week's "Business Week" about Citrix and MicroSoft.  Any comments
or feelings about how this "resembles" our NT Cluster "strategy"?

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           "http://www.businessweek.com/1997/11/b351864.htm"


                           OF MICE AND MICROSOFT

           How Citrix' overnight success turned so sour so fast

       Dancing with an elephant is tricky in the best of
       circumstances. Dancing with an elephant that changes course
       on a dime can be downright hazardous. Just ask Edward E.
       Iacobucci, chairman of Citrix Systems Inc. in Fort
       Lauderdale, Fla. The software company saw revenues triple to
       $45 million last year from just $15 million in 1995. At its
       peak last year, the company had a market cap of nearly $1.5
       billion. Most of that amazing performance was based on a
       relationship with Microsoft Corp. that came down to this:
       Microsoft endorsed Citrix technology that lets a dozen or
       more computers share Windows programs running on a central,
       networked computer. With the software giant's blessing,
       Citrix was golden.

       The merry dance ended on Feb. 26, when Citrix announced that
       Microsoft was considering adding features to new versions of
       Windows to do part of what Citrix' products do. With Citrix'
       Microsoft relationship in question, investors fled and the
       stock plummeted 60% on Feb. 27, to 10 5/8 from 26 1/4. On
       rumors of a Microsoft rift, it already had fallen nearly $6 a
       share earlier that week. Citrix' market capitalization
       briefly dropped below $250 million.

       FRIEND OF BILL. What's surprising is that the market was so
       surprised. After all, the reliance on Microsoft was listed
       prominently among ''risk factors'' in public disclosures made
       in connection with Citrix stock. The documents even alerted
       investors to the possibility of Microsoft becoming a major
       competitor. ''They were clear, to my knowledge, that
       Microsoft might end up with a similar technology,'' says
       James E. Allchin, a Microsoft senior vice-president.

       Part of what may have lulled Citrix investors into a sense of
       security was Iacobucci's history with Microsoft Chairman
       William H. Gates III. Iacobucci says he worked with Microsoft
       ''when Microsoft was smaller than Citrix.'' Before starting
       Citrix in 1989, Iacobucci worked for 11 years at IBM and
       headed the IBM-Microsoft team that developed the OS/2
       operating system. Gates even wrote the foreword to
       Iacobucci's OS/2 Programmer's Guide. Microsoft was an early
       investor in Citrix, owned 6.8% of its shares, and had a board
       seat.

       All that meant little when it came down to business: Citrix
       was serving a market that Microsoft figured it needed to be
       in. Citrix products allowed customers to hook up all sorts of
       computers--including Macintoshes and stripped-down ''network
       computers''--to servers that let them use Windows or Windows
       NT programs.

       Microsoft says it began exploring the development of such
       ''multi-user capability'' because customers were asking for
       it. Microsoft blessed the Citrix approach so customers could
       get immediate gratification. But, says Allchin, it ''was just
       a question of time'' before Microsoft would develop its own
       product. Coming now, the timing is sooner than the market had
       anticipated, says Thomas C. Offut, vice-president of business
       development for Wyse Technology Inc., a network-computer
       maker and strategic partner with Citrix.

       Citrix still has a business, with Microsoft's own version
       months or perhaps years away, says Chip Gliedman, director of
       research for technology consultants Giga Information Group
       Inc. ''Every company that has made its living extending
       Microsoft's capability has had to learn to dance between the
       feet of the elephant,'' he says. ''I'm not writing Citrix
       off, and I'm advising our clients who are deploying Citrix
       not to do so.''

       UNDEAD. Indeed, addressing industry analysts at a Robertson,
       Stephens & Co. technology conference the day after the
       announcement, Iacobucci borrowed a line from Mark Twain,
       assuring investors: ''The reports of my death have been
       greatly exaggerated.'' Citrix, he points out, has licensing
       agreements with Microsoft and other strategic partners, $137
       million in cash, and no debt.

       And while Microsoft plans to build more components into
       Windows that make multi-user and remote-user capability
       possible, both Iacobucci and Allchin point out that the
       software giant may license some technology from Citrix in its
       multiuser programming. ''Microsoft is a big enough company
       that it can do anything it wants when it wants to,''
       Iacobucci says. ''The fact that we're still here
       [negotiating] bodes well.'' Indeed, that's what happens when
       you dance with elephants. You get crushed--or learn to dance
       faster.

       By Gail DeGeorge in Miami, with bureau reports

                      -------------------------------

                               RELATED ITEMS

            TABLE: The Saga of Software Supplier Citrix...

            CHART: ...And How Far It Fell

            PHOTO: Edward Iocobucci, Citrix CEO

                           Return to top of story

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                    Updated Mar. 6, 1997 by bwwebmaster
   Copyright 1997, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

	It's sure going to be interesting to watch Bill G. grovel in
	a few years when Microsoft takes the inevitable downturn. His
	ride will not last forever. Nobody in this industry should
	ever think they have the perfect wave. He just may ride it
	longer than most, but at some point, he'll hit the beach.

	(This is not to say that I haven't bet on riding this wave
	for the forseeable future)

							mike

    
    	Grovel?
    
    	The guy's worth over $1B.  Who would grovel over that?
    
    	Heck, I'd be happy to retire with 1/10 of that.  8^)
    

Re: .-1

>	The guy's worth over $1B.  Who would grovel over that?
    
Over $27 billion, just in Microsoft stock.  But who's counting? :-)

    
    	What, $27B isn't over $1B?
    
    	8^)
    

    -1 significantly, by most standards :-).
    
       Chip

    +              HP & MICROSOFT HEADED FOR THE ALTAR
    
    All those stories you've been reading saying Hewlett-Packard
    and Microsoft are negotiating a tie-up no stronger than mutual
    regard in terms of systems management products are only about
    1% of the story. Our sister newspaper Client Server News of
    today confirms that the proposed alliance is far broader and
    significant. Look for promises of devotion not much short of
    nuptials on Wednesday of next week, March 19th, when Microsoft
    CEO Bill Gates and HP CEO Lew Platt are slated to plight their
    troth at the former's Developer's Days conference. There have
    been cries and whispers of such a team-up for some three years,
    but this time it's for real, extremely reliable sources affirm.
    The question is how much of their hands the pair will show from
    the git-go. The alliance is reportedly very broad in scope. But
    a fly in the ointment appears to be DEC which, CSN hears, has
    so far managed to thwart such an axis by holding its alliance
    contract with Redmond under Microsoft's nose and threatening
    legal action if Microsoft attempts to duplicate such a
    relationship with anybody else. Bad blood created by such
    threats has kept Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and DEC CEO Bob
    Palmer from the joint appearances originally envisioned when
    their alliance was signed, though one has to wonder about
    Microsoft's good faith in that regard. After all the sandy
    basis for this alleged lovefest is DEC's threat to sue
    Microsoft's ass for poaching its intellectual property in the
    form of the Mica code that became NT (CSN 178). Microsoft
    "settled" by paying DEC about $105m including the $75m
    Microsoft kicked in to bolster DEC's NT service and support.
    Whether the HP-Microsoft entente is also based on IP trespass
    remains to be seen, but money is supposed to be changing hands.
    Depending on how far Lew and Bill push it in front of the no
    doubt delicious crowd, they may wax eloquent over NT as HP's
    strategic direction, HP as Microsoft's Internet partner, HP as
    NetPC provider, HP as service provider and - this one should
    really rankle DEC - HP as NT-Unix integrator for the
    enterprise. As for the DEC-Microsoft alliance, does anybody but
    DEC takes it seriously?

	Thought that this just might be relevant...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hardware And Software Vendors Join To Create Clustering Spec 

 Top hardware and software vendors, led by Compaq Computer, Intel, Microsoft,
and Tandem  Computers, are teaming to create a clustering specification for a
secure, reliable, and  high-performance data-transport mechanism for clustered
systems. 

 The Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA) is a hardware and software spec that
lets IS  organizations design or implement clustered systems, regardless of the
underlying transport  mechanism. "Customers won't have to pick and choose
pieces and parts," says Jim Johnson,  chairman of the Standish Group, a
consulting firm in Dennis, Mass. 

 VIA describes the way components within a clustered system, including linked
servers, interact.  The data-transport mechanism, say sources, will be an
interconnect layer that can be accessed  regardless of an application
developer's choice of clustering environments. "When you're dealing  with a
network, you shouldn't have to worry about what's under the sheets. We're
trying to  make clustering the same way," says an executive involved in the
specification development. 

 Although VIA draws on work done for the Intelligent I/O architecture and on
Microsoft's  Wolfpack clustering software for Windows NT, which has been
delayed several months, the  spec will include additional input from about 50
companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Novell,  and The Santa Cruz Operation,
sources say. 

 Mark Wood, product manager for Wolfpack in Microsoft's personal and business
systems  division, declined to comment. 

 VIA has yet to become public, but the companies backing it met in January in
Tempe, Ariz., to  review a draft version of the spec. Sources say the final
version could emerge by midyear, with  systems that take advantage of the
technology following shortly after. 

    At least the wolfpack product manager declined comment... 
    
    Not one word about Digital... Not one...
    
    yeah I know it's Compaq and Tandum marketing but we have an "Alliance"
    with a couple people on that page...
    
    *Sigh*
    
    Like in indepence day it's like it's time to nuke the bastards but 
    I don't think that nukes would even register on their shields at
    this point...
    
    JMHO
    
    John W.

If you were Microsoft, would you rather partner with the second largest computer
maker that is in steam roller mode, or with a company in a continual death
spiral.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.

With this industry in merger mania mode, why hasn't anyone shown the 
slightest interest in Digital?   Think about it.

    that one's easy,
    
    they're waiting for the shares to drop under $US30 - any day now :'/
    :'(
    
    H