Citrix’s entry into the portals business is interesting — it is seeking to diversify its revenue stream from the Thin Client segment.
The market for so-called portal software is booming because it addresses one of the fundamental problems businesses face today – sifting through the vast quantities of data they have accumulated over the years and giving employees access to the information needed to do their jobs.
The idea is that a finance worker, for example, would turn on his or her computer in the morning and be greeted by a Web page that gives access to the information – company expenses, employee salaries or new budget requests – that he or she has requested.
One analyst says Citrix is in the access and aggregation business, and portals are the next natural level for them.
The Enterprise Information Portal is going to be the New Desktop, as I wrote earlier today. Combined with the Thin Client running Linux and with blogs, outlines, RSS, this can become the platform for the new information architecture in the enterprise.
