Citrix Plots Mobile Madness With Bytemobile Buy

Citrix is planning on homing in on the mobile network operator market with today’s announcement that it has acquired data and video optimisation firm Bytemobile.

Bytemobile is to be integrated into Citrix’s cloud networking product group once the deal is closed, which is expected to happen in the third quarter of this year. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Citrix said it marked a turning point for the company, as it meant it was now entering the telecoms space, where it hopes to combine its cloud computing technologies with Bytemobile capabilities. It is banking on the success of 4G networks too, which it believes will bring the cloud and mobile markets even closer together.

Moving into mobile

“The cloud and mobile revolutions are rapidly converging, and mobile operators are at the heart of this convergence,” said Klaus Oestermann, group vice president and general manager of cloud networking at Citrix. “With the integration of Bytemobile technology, products and intellectual capital, Citrix will be uniquely positioned to be a leader in the global mobile data and video infrastructure market in the LTE era.”

Citrix said it would retain and grow “its investment in the Bytemobile brand, technology, products, employees and customer relationships.” Bytemobile will continue as an independent product group.

“The integration of Bytemobile will enable us to extend our value proposition to the edge of the network, bringing content closer to the end user,” Oestermann added.

“The benefits to network operators and their subscribers include faster, more efficient, more reliable, and more manageable networks; higher performance resulting in better service and a better user experience; and scalability to process growing volumes of data traffic at a much lower cost.”

Citrix has been ploughing on with its fairly aggressive acquisition strategy, following the purchase of social collaboration firm Podio in April. Last year, it made a major purchase in the form of Cloud.com, which meant it gave its backing to the CloudStack platform, moving away from OpenStack that it had originally supported.

Are you a cloud pro? Try our quiz!