Citrix moves into e-licensing

Citrix has decided to move more and more of its products into the e-licensing
mode. Worldwide, there has been a 35 percent shift from the traditional boxes to
e-licenses. The company hopes to emulate this figure in India by the end of next
year.

Kishore Badami says that this is good news for the channel. The e-licensing
mode means that partners can post orders on the Web. "Earlier fulfillment
of orders would take roughly a fortnight. But this turnaround time would be cut
in half . Also it reduces the administrative headache of the partner," says
Kishore.

	Formulating a recommended reseller pricing for safeguarding partner margins
Kishore Badami

After recently getting feedback from partners that services revenues are
taking a beating due to severe undercutting in the market, Citrix had promised
partners that it would look into this matter. Says Nilesh Kadakia of
Mumbai-based Magnamious Systems, "Often when we quote a certain price for
service contracts, our competitor will approach him with lower quotes.

This kills our service revenues."

Kishore admits that he has been receiving similar feedback from other
partners as well and therefore Citrix has formulated a recommended reseller
pricing. This pricing sets out minimum pricing quotation that a Citrix partner
should offer to customers.

"Though this is not enforceable on partners, we will educate them that
sticking to this pricing will only work to their benefit in the long run. For
starters, they will be able to retain their customers without causing loss to
another Citrix partner," says Kishore.

This move has been appreciated by partners. Says Nitin Shah of Mumbai-based
Allied Digital Services, "Services is the mainstay of many partners and now
that Citrix is taking steps to safeguard the margins in this business, it will
only improve our business."

VINITA BHATIA