Rapidly growing Citrix Service Provider Channel offers differentiated Cloud-hosted Virtual Desktops

Digicel Group and OneNeck IT Services have launched cloud-hosted virtual desktop services built on the industry-leading Citrix XenDesktop® and Citrix XenApp®, allowing them to provide unique, differentiated services to enable mobility for small and mid-sized businesses. The Citrix Service Provider (CSP) channel is an extension of the company’s leadership in on-premise and cloud-hosted desktop virtualization, and has surpassed 2,600 partners. Because these partners are building services on Citrix technology and service provider reference architecture, they are able to offer highly differentiated cloud-hosted desktops and applications delivered on a subscription basis to businesses looking to go mobile and enable bring-your-own (BYO) device programs.

Enabling Business Mobility for SMBs

Small and mid-sized businesses are responding to market forces facing all companies: How to enable a mobile workforce while addressing the growing user demands for flexibility and device choice. Yet, these businesses often have little or no IT staff or datacenter infrastructure, so service providers – from large telcos to regional managed service providers – are responding to these needs by developing hosted cloud services. These services, including hosted applications, desktops and device management programs, are built on Citrix desktop virtualization and MDM solutions, and priced using monthly pay-as-you-go licensing. This allows SMBs to access a robust, flexible IT infrastructure without having to make large capital and personnel investments.

According to Gartner, “HVD [Hosted Virtual Desktops] suit many SMBs as it requires fewer IT staff, servers, software administrators and dedicated network connections. The elimination of these factors significantly reduces business overhead and delivers dramatic elimination of many IT costs. As an additional bonus, new users can be enabled quickly — often within minutes.” In the same 2012 survey report, Gartner found that “approximately 43 percent of SMBs are already deploying HVDs.”