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Commonly Asked Questions About Recent Citrix Changes And How To Best Navigate Them.
With the recent changes to the Partner Programs at Citrix, you may be in a position where you have clients that need to purchase Citrix licensing either by the month, or for multi year subscriptions, and you no longer have access to procure them through Citrix/Dicker Data.
There are some specific rules that have come into play for clients that have less than 250 licenses.
Q: Why is Citrix making these changes (for me and my clients)?
As you may have heard, Citrix was acquired by a Private Equity Firm, and has been combined with TIBCO Software to form a new entity, Cloud Software Group. See press release here.
As such, a number of changes have been put in place, including:
- Raising the bar to remain a Citrix Partner.
- Removing the sale of Perpetual Software for anyone and Software Maintenance for clients that have 1000 or more licenses, and only selling Subscription Software going forwards (announced September 2020 and September 2022 respectively)
- Raising the bar to remain a Citrix Partner
The outcome of these changes has meant that many Citrix Partners were unable to meet the new requirements in Certification and Sales to keep their partnership with Citrix, effectively not allowing them to procure and sell Citrix software going forward.
Add to the above that Citrix has closed its partner program to new applications, this has left some partners in the unenviable position that they can not service their clients with regards to the procurement of Citrix Licensing.
This means clients will be forced to get their Licensing from a competitor, potentially opening up that client to a further reduction in business for the original partner.
- Removing all sale of Perpetual Software and Software Maintenance
As mentioned above, Citrix has made Perpetual Software EOS (End of Sale) as of November 2020.
This means that if a client wanted to purchase additional software licenses for new or existing products, then they would need to buy them on one of a few available subscription models.
These models are covered in the below FAQs.
Q: What do these changes mean for my clients?
Clients may choose to leave their current Perpetual Licenses in place, and renew their software maintenance if they have less than 999 User/Device Licenses.
Clients that have more than 250 User/Device Licenses may at any time choose to purchase single or multi year software contracts, thereby giving them the ability to run workloads in Public Clouds and stay up to date and get support from Citrix.
With relation to the core Citrix DaaS product (previously known as CVAD Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops), there is a new licensing model known as a Universal License.
This new license entitles the end user to run their desktop and application workloads “on premises” or on any Cloud providers compatible platform.
Please note, Citrix is only allowing clients with more than 250 Licenses the option to buy single or multi year subscriptions for Universal Licenses.
Q: What options are available for clients with less than 250 licenses?
Citrix has decided that smaller clients needing to purchase new Citrix DaaS style licenses can only purchase them through a CSP Partner.
This type of partner owns the licenses and bills the client for the monthly usage.
Smaller clients (and larger ones who want to) must now purchase these “by the month” licenses to continue to run and update their environments with Citrix DaaS.
If you are currently servicing a client that is smaller than 250 licenses (or larger that wants to use this model), and you are no longer a Citrix CSP or CSA Partner, then Teba is offering to partner with you, so your clients can continue to get access to licenses through you. Read more about the support offered by Teba below.
Q: If a client needs to move to CSP style licensing, can I, or my client still call Citrix for support?
If a client still has Active Maintenance left on their Perpetual Licenses, then they, or you on their behalf can still log calls for technical support with Citrix.
If a client goes to CSP style licensing, as CSP is a month by month Subscription model license, this model does not let them, or you as their IT provider call Citrix for support, as these licenses are owned by Teba, and Citrix will only take calls from Teba Certified Employees. Read the rest of the FAQs for more information.
Q: How will these changes affect my ability to service my clients?
Should your clients need to transition to the pay by the month model, offered by CSP partners, then Teba can provide these licenses for you.
As Teba own and are responsible for the licenses, as mentioned above, only Teba can place support calls for your client’s environments.
Teba has a program with a small monthly fee to administer the utilisation and billing of clients, as well as have resources available to you or your clients should the need to log a support call arise.
Support calls will be charged on a Time and Materials basis, so you or your client only pays for the time used to report and optionally resolve the problem.
We will discuss this program when we get on a call with you to discuss your and your client’s requirements.
You can of course keep servicing your clients as you have in the past. You are just partnering with Teba for the procurement of monthly licenses and escalation of problems to the vendor (Citrix).
Q: Who is Teba, and why should I partner with you?
Teba is a Citrix Platinum + partner (10th year as Platinum), who solely focuses on Citrix and related technologies.
At Teba we do not offer other services and products unless they make End User Compute environments perform better.
We have been partnering with other IT companies since 2011, helping them deliver Citrix solutions including software and when required Consultation and Services.
As Teba is known in the industry for working with both Large and Medium Corporates and IT Partners solely to deliver Citrix solutions, you never have to worry about Teba taking over what is core business for their partners.
If you bring a client opportunity to Teba, and there is no existing relationship (either directly or with another partner), Teba will mark that client in CRM as belonging to you, and all quoting/sales/services will go through you.
Should another partner approach us about your client, we will let them know that we already have a relationship in that account, and notify you that the client is looking elsewhere.
Teba has maintained this policy and reputation for over a dozen years now, so you can feel confident partnering will be exactly that.
Teba is an Australian company that has extensive knowledge on designing and licensing Citrix solutions from the very small business (25 users) to the largest enterprises (tens of thousands of users).
Glossary of Terms
CSA (Citrix Solution Advisor) Partner
There are three Citrix partner levels:
- Solution Advisor Partner
- Gold Solution Advisor
- Platinum Solution Advisor
CSA Partners can sell single and multi year Software Subscriptions, as well as provide professional services to design, implement and maintain Citrix systems.
CSP (Citrix Service Provider) Partner
The Citrix Service Provider Program (“CSP Program”) allows hosting provider companies to license Citrix Products for use in providing hosted services for their end user customers (“Customers”), based on a monthly usage model.
Perpetual Licensing vs Subscription Licensing
Perpetual licensing is when a software vendor sells a license to a user for a one-time fee (usually charging a smaller yearly maintenance fee to receive software updates and support). With a subscription license, a user purchases a monthly or annual subscription. The main difference between these two license types is the ongoing relationship between the customer and the software provider.
Perpetual Licenses can be thought of like buying a car, and optionally servicing that car, as opposed to Subscription Licenses being like renting a car with maintenance included.
If you stop paying the rental on a car, you must return the car and can no longer use it.
Citrix no longer sells Perpetual Licensing.
Universal License
A Citrix DaaS license that allows you to run your desktop or application workloads on either “on premises/datacentre” infrastructure, or in a Public Cloud providers platform.
Before Universal Licensing, clients needing to transition to a Public Cloud provider over time, or run a Hybrid environment would have to purchase Hybrid Rights as an additional yearly cost. This is now included with a Universal License.
DaaS (Citrix Desktop as a Service)
Citrix DaaS (formerly CVAD – Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) provides virtualization solutions that give IT control of virtual machines, applications, and security while providing anywhere access for any device. End users can use applications and desktops independently of the device’s operating system and interface.
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