The latest Citrix plugin 11.XX.31560 or whatever release number they’re on now – it blows. Especially if your organizations still using Presentation Server. Let’s face it, that’s most of us. Despite Citrix’s futile attempt to create a revenue stream though forced updates to “XenServer” (the dumbest name ever for a product release) most organizations have sought ways to abandon Citrix verses adopting their expensive, required server upgrades.
I’ve been administering Citrix servers since Winframe, their first real product. Lately Citrix is just flat out falling behind. They’re getting squashed in the virtualization market by VMWare, which is keeping EMC afloat, and many companies are looking for ways to get off Citrix servers if possible. And while GoToMeeting was a good idea, the interface and cost was poorly executed compared to LogMeIn, who dominate the remote support market because their product works better and provides more functionality for less.
To really kick their customers where it hurts Citrix decided to yank legacy clients from their download site and admins are forced to struggle to get “web based” and the newer virtualization style ICA clients to connect to legacy Presentation servers that may not have a Program Neighbor Agent front end server. We have a PNAgent server and I still can’t get the damn thing to connect half the time. And just forget and walk away from your old Citrix Access Gateway with these newer clients. You’ll want to drive to Florida and scream in the face of a Citrix executive.
Anyone thinking about buying stock in Citrix should re-consider. They are failing in their new endeavors and they are leaving their long time followers behind if they don’t upgrade to the next clooky, bug filled release they engineer to keep reinventing the wheel. Wheels Citrix needs to just leave to the other companies that make them a little more well rounded.