Networks '97: Citrix paints NT and Picasso future

Citrix will launch WinFrame 1.7 at the Networks '97 show in Birmingham today, while revealing tentative plans for its next generation software codenamed 'Picasso'. Picasso, which is due to be launched early next year, will be the company's first product to take advantage of last month's MultiWin technology licensing agreement with Microsoft.

Microsoft is currently building the MultiWin technology into NT 4.x and 5.0, enabling the NT platform to be innately multi-user. Citrix will then take this multi-user version of NT and build its WinFrame ICA technology on top to create Picasso, thereby pushing Citrix into the corporate multi-user market for the first time.

"Up until now we have just been concerned about the desktop. Picasso is the next step and that will take us into corporate multi-user territory," said Mark Templeton, Citrix vice-president of marketing.

"Picasso will solve multi-user problems of large enterprise customers and will interoperate with WinFrame servers, therefore no upgrades will be necessary to run Picasso. It will also be a value-added platform on which third-parties can develop industry-specific solutions."

Templeton also pinpointed a larger, future market for Citrix, which would include extending the reach of its thin client/server architecture to consumer devices such as phones and TVs. "BT is a strategic partner in the UK and we are already experimenting with phones that have screens to help provide services such as home banking and yellow pages," he commented.