Citrix Systems (NASDAQ: CTXS) is an enterprise infrastructure company specializing in centralization architecture and real time collaboration. The company provides a number of applications that allow companies to install single copies of software on a server and have employee computers access them through a network. Though it derives over 70% of its revenue from the slowly dying thin client market, where enterprise users stream applications from a central server to employee's PCs, the recent acquisitions of Ardence and XenSource have put the company in prime position to offer cutting-edge streaming virtualization technology, which allows enterprise customers to greatly cut IT costs by streaming multiple operating systems from a single machine or server simultaneously. Market growth in this area is phenomenal, but the company lacks solid application networking software, putting it at a severe disadvantage when compared to competitors like F5 Networks (FFIV) and Cisco.

Citrix also faces the prospect of intense competition with Microsoft. The latter has begun packaging competing technology into its new Windows Enterprise Server. Although though recent changes in the Vista license could benefit the Citrix by allowing its software to be the platform on which users can stream Vista, there is every possibility that users of Vista will take advantage of Vista's free centralization features to avoid purchasing Citrix's services.

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