The Web Conferencing Blog

Citrix OEMs IP Technology from Global IP Solutions

About a month ago, Citrix and Global IP Solutions, a provider of IP technology, entered into a OEM license and distribution agreement to provide VoIP and PSTN audio conferencing for GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar.

I'm curious what happened to the $26.6M investment Citrix made in Nov 2008 to acquire VAPPS, a provider of VoIP solutions. From my understanding, the acquisition was made so Citrix could provide better VoIP to its customers. Was the VAPPS integration more challenging than expected? Did management opt to scrap the integration project in favor of OEMing with a VoIP provider instead? Was positioning VoIP as an audio solution hard for the Citrix sales team?

I thought the VAPPS acquisition made sense but like all acquisitions, execution and integration can be very challenging.

Global IP Solution's Voice ConferenceEngine and VoiceEngine are the two components that will be utilized by Citrix.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Citrix to Layoff 10% as Q4 Numbers Down

Citrix lost 4.2% on net income for Q4 as license sales declined. In response to the decrease in its number, Citrix will reduce 10% of its global workforce as a cost cutting measure as the downturn in the economy has hurt the demand for their technology products. The job cut is expected to save the company $50M in employee expenses yearly before taxes.

The first set of Citrix lay-offs were expected today.

Interestingly enough, Microsoft had their first ever round of layoffs last week which impacted 5,000 workers, approximately 5% of the workforce.

Through Tuesday, U.S. companies had announced more than 519,895 job cuts since Nov. 1, according to Bloomberg data.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToMeeting Firewall Issues

Using GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar with Firewalls  

Using GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar with personal firewalls

If you have a personal firewall (ZoneAlarm®, Norton Personal Firewall™, etc.) installed, make sure that GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar is not being blocked. If so, unblock GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar and try again.

Additionally, you can enable your personal firewall so that GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar can access the Internet every time you need it to.

 

 Enabling GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to access the Internet

The first time you run GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar on a PC that has a firewall installed, you will set off the firewall and be prompted to allow GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to access the Internet.

1. Select the check box to Remember the answer each time I use this program.

2. Click Yes to enable GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to access the Internet.

 

Using GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar within a Business Environment

If you do not have a personal firewall but are in a "Business Environment," you may have a hardware firewall. Please provide the document found at www.citrixonline.com/iprange to your IT department so that they may allow GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar to connect.

 

If a connection still cannot be established, please contact Customer Care for support

 

Customer Care
(800) 263-6317 (US and Canada, toll free)
+1 (805) 690-5753 (direct dial)
gotomeetingcare@citrixonline.com

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/default/help/g2m/troubleshooting/connection_test_help.htm

Citrix Downplays Need for Video at SMB Level

As I mentioned in a blog in October...that Telepresence would enter the SMB and consumer markets, John Chambers: CEO of Cisco, has predicted that Telepresence will be in homes in less than a year. http://davidchao.typepad.com/webconferencingexpert/2008/10/telepresence-ma.html

Brett Caine, President of Citrix, sees things differently. Brett Caine sees little need or demand for video at the SMB level. He has also stated that there is little demand for instant messaging, video chat, and teleconferencing...though Citrix just acquired audio provider Vapps based in New Jersey. (It should be noted that Citrix does not have instant messaging or video capabilities today and perhaps why they the perception is that these solutions are of "little need or demand.")

The only potential obstacle that I can see with consumer-based Telepresence is internet bandwidth. Not every home has a broadband connection as some homes are still using solutions like NetZero. It will be the consumers who pay more for broadband that will see the benefit of Telepresence and want to pay for it, not the NetZero type users.

Telepresence Providers:

• Cisco
• HP Halo
• LifeSize.com (Small company that has done $14M in revenue)
• Tandberg
• Microsoft Roundtable

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

Citrix Buys a Phone Company

Citrix ventures into the audio conferencing business with their acquisition of Vapps, based in New Jersey, for $26.6M. With the economy where it's at, the acquisition isn't that bad of an idea since there are many small business out there with cash-flow problems which an acquisition like this would solve. Citrix also benefits with a discounted purchase price. (Vapps has about 15 employees and does about $2M in sales revenue.)

Vapps' main focus is on VoIP, something that Citrix has been trying to get right on their own with their Total Audio Package but have been unable to overcome the ongoing issues with audio echos and degradation.

It will be interesting to see what comes from the Vapps acquisition and if there will be integration with the Citrix solutions.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToMeeting Service Crash

Last Tursday, August 7th, the GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar applications had a service crash!!!

Without going into the details of the service disruption email, Citrix basically said that the service issues were due to increased demand in their service. Though they claim to have made upgrades in their infrastructure, it appears that they did not.

The service disruption email was very well-crafted from the GoToMeeting marketing department. They did a great job of taking a very negative situation and spinning it around. "It's our fault, sorry for the inconvenience. Our service is really great but we apologies for the technical issues and apologies that our capacity planning team was not made aware of the infrastructure changes that were required to support or customer's growing needs."   

Some may view this in good light, other will most likely view this in bad light, causing some concerns of GoToMeeting's service reliability.


Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToMeeting and Firewall Configuration

Here are insightful tips if you are having firewall problems with GoToMeeting:

If you have a personal firewall in place like Norton Firewall or ZoneAlarm, you need to make sure that GoToMeeting is not being blocked for security reasons. If it is blocked due to security risks, typically the normal default setting, you need to unblock GoToMeeting and then attempt to connect again.

If you wish to set your firewall to enable GoToMeeting, you can bypass the security block default. To do this, first launch GoToMeeting and then your firewall will alert you of the security risk and prompt you to allow GoToMeeting to access the Internet. Be sure to check box "Remember the answer each time I use this program." Then click "Yes" to enable GoToMeeting to access the Internet.

One thing to keep in mind is that this option does not mean you will not be subject to GoToMeeting URL blocking from your customer's side. This simply solves issues you might have with GoToMeeting across a personal firewall.

If you are in a "Business Environment" and experience firewall issues, you will need to contact your IT department for help. The IT department will know if the firewall has a content or application data scanning filter which may cause blocking or latency. If this is the case, verify that the IP ranges below will not be scanned or filtered by content or application data scanning filters by specifying exception IP ranges that will not be filtered.

If your security policy requires you to specify explicit IP ranges, then configure your firewall to limit port 8200 or 80 or 443 destination IP addresses to only the Citrix Online ranges listed below. (Click on link below)

Citrix Online SERVER / Datacenter IP Addresses for Use in Firewall Configurations
(Equivalent Specifications in 3 Comma Formats)
Download citrix_online_assigned_ip_ranges.xls

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Blog

New Version of Citrix GoToMeeting 4.0

There is marketing buzz about Citrix releasing a new version of GoToMeeting 4.0 Not quite sure of why there is a buzz since the only change they made was to finally support VoIP after many years of not being able to support it. (It's only 2-way streaming VoIP, so not very collaborative.)

For GoToMeeting 4.0 VoIP to work you, need a USB microphone and headset. During initial tests, the general feedback was occasional audio glitches. Citrix stated that the GoToMeeting 4.0 audio delays were due to the fact that the group they were meeting with had an Internet connection that was heavily used by its employees. "Hmmm, isn't that every company out there? Does that mean that if you have employees that actually use the Internet then the Citrix VoIP will be subject to glitches and delays?" Sort of makes sense that Citrix also developed local PSTN calling as a backup to the anticipated GoToMeeting 4.0 VoIP issues. NOTE: If you experience VoIP re-verb, echo effects, then you can resort back to the standard telephone. Take a quick look at a Citrix email about their audio service for some reassurance: http://davidchao.typepad.com/webconferencingexpert/2007/11/gotowebinar-aud.html

You can also record with Citrix GoToMeeting 4.0 but you are required to have 1 GB of available storage, download a G2M2 recording codec, and are expected to wait 45 minutes for a 60 minute recording to "convert." Citrix recommends that you do nothing on your computer during this 45 minute conversion since the recording/conversion process requires lots of CPU. You also need to but a Dynametric Box. There is nothing like slapping a solution together on your own and hoping that it works. Personally, it makes me feel like a real techie!

The Citrix "Total Audio Service" is priced out at $49 per month and $59 per month for the corporate version.

At the end of the day, Citrix should stay focused on what they do well: servers. (Citrix officially plays in the Application Delivery Infrastructure market and their server technologies are sound.) They acquired XenSource in 2007 with the hopes of executing their corporate-wide strategy of providing desktop virtualization solutions while cutting into the market share of VMWare. XenServer and XenDesktop are the two main virtualization products offered by Citrix and both are worth keeping an eye on.

It will also be interesting to see how the Application Virtualization strategy of Citrix will effect their relationship with Microsoft. The way I see it, Citrix needs to keep a close watch on companies like VMWare, Virtual Iron, Juniper Networks, RiverBed Technologies, and F5 Networks since these are the main players in the Application Delivery Infrastructure* space.

* Application Delivery Infrastructure = application, server, desktop virtualization, application performance monitoring, SSL/VPN, gateways, WAN optimization, etc.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert

GoToWebinar Audio Crash

Got my hands on an pretty interesting email and did not have a chance to publish it last week...

From: Justin Brown [mailto: xxxxxxxx@citrix.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:38 PM
To: Steve H
Subject: Citrix|Online - We apologize for your Webinar experience today

Between 10:05 AM and 10:20 AM PDT customers attempting to use the GoToWebinar conference bridge may have experienced a "fast busy signal" or received the message "all circuits are busy". This service interruption resulted from a TELCO trunk failure.

The GoToWebinar conference bridge began to stabilize at 10:26AM PDT.

We understand that our customers depend on GoToWebinar. Citrix Online is in the process of continuing to upgrade all of our services to ensure that our operations are scalable. We deeply regret the inconvenience of Today’s GoToWebinar service interruption.

Warm Regards.

Justin Brown | Customer Care Manager
Citrix Systems, Inc

Citrix Security Vulnerability

It amazes me how companies overlook internet security and procure technologies solely on price. I have mentioned numerous times that Citrix has security vulnerabilities in their technology and their infrastructure. Below is a summary from an article by Thomas Claburn from Information Week.

Recently, a security consultant found a vulnerability that allows an attackers to gain "user access level on integrated remote Citrix servers." This securily flaw enables attackers to access and execute remote commands on Citrix servers.

GnuCitizen, which identifies itself as a "cutting-edge think tank" and a "creative hacker organization," has posted a warning about a cross-site request forgery attack that can be made in conjunction with a malicious website to trick a Citrix user into opening a specially crafted Citrix independent computer architecture (ICA) file that would compromise his or her system.

If successful, the attacker could gain the ability to execute remote commands at the victim's access level.

"The success of the attack [relies] on the fact that the victim (the proxy) is part of a Citrix ring to which he/she can perform pass-through authentication," explains Petko D. Petkov, founder of GnuCitizen and its lead researcher, in a blog post. "Once a connection is instantiated, the victim will unwillingly and transparently login into Citrix and perform several commands specified by the attacker. The attacker can simply instruct the remote desktop to download files from a remote TFTP server and execute them locally. Once the attack is performed, the local connection is terminated and the Citrix session is cleared. No user interaction is required!"

In an e-mail, Petkov characterized the vulnerability as quite severe. "It is a remote command execution attack which cannot be easily fixed, mainly because it relies on features rather than bugs," he said. "If the attacker tricks a user from the targeted network into visiting a malicious Web site or opening a specially crafted ICA file, then they might be able to gain access to critical corporate assets. The attack is very simple and highly effective. Citrix is also a very popular platform. This makes this issue extremely problematic."

Petkov said that while he doubts the vulnerability is widely known, "anyone with the right methodology and mindset will be able to rediscover it."

Citrix said in an e-mailed statement that it "has become aware of recent blog postings relating to insecure deployment of Citrix products." The company said that while no specific vulnerability was identified, it recommends that its customers follow the security practices outlined on its Web site.

Before investing in technologies, make sure they have independent security certifications like WebTrust or SAS-70 Type I/Type II Certifications.

Thanks,
David Chao
The Web Conferencing Expert