Citrix Completes XenSource Buy

LAS VEGAS -- Today at Citrix iForum, the world’s largest application delivery conference and expo, Citrix Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTXS) announced it has completed the acquisition of XenSource, Inc., a privately held leader in enterprise-grade virtual infrastructure solutions. The purchase price for the transaction was approximately $500 million payable in a combination of cash and Citrix common stock.

This acquisition moves Citrix, a pioneer in the application virtualization market, into adjacent server and desktop virtualization markets -- expected by Citrix to grow to nearly $5 billion over the next four years. By acquiring XenSource, Citrix is now the only company to offer organizations an end-to-end application delivery infrastructure that leverages the method of application, desktop and server virtualization best suited for the dynamic delivery of applications to any user (see today’s separate press release on the company’s enhanced virtualization strategy).

As previously announced on Aug. 15 upon close of the acquisition the XenSource team and products will form the core of the new Virtualization & Management Division of Citrix dedicated to building and growing these important new businesses. Peter Levine, XenSource, CEO, will lead the new division, reporting directly to Mark Templeton, Citrix president and CEO. Under Peter’s leadership, this new division will oversee Citrix’s businesses in server virtualization and application delivery management solutions as part of the company’s overall application delivery infrastructure strategy.

Citrix also reiterated its commitment to maintaining and growing support for the independent Xen open source community which develops the underlying virtualization engine used by many commercial products throughout the industry, including those from XenSource. The Xen project, which includes significant contributions from companies like Intel, AMD, HP, IBM and Dell, is led by XenSource co-founder, and new Citrix employee, Ian Pratt. Since news of the acquisition, XenSource has worked with the key contributors to the Xen project to develop procedures for independent oversight of the project, ensuring that it continues to operate with full transparency, fairness and vendor neutrality. Citrix agrees these principles are critical to the continued role of Xen as a freely available open source industry standard for virtualization.

“The XenSource products, team and culture are a great addition to the Citrix family,” said Mark Templeton, president and chief executive officer for Citrix. “The combination of Citrix and XenSource brings together application, desktop and server virtualization to deliver more innovation, choice and flexibility to the market, including our installed base of more than 200,000 customers worldwide. As application delivery becomes a top issue for IT and the world becomes more dynamic, we find it important to be sure we are providing customers the most cutting-edge technologies out there.”XenSource Inc.

Citrix Systems Inc.