Cloud computing is fundamentally changing how IT services are viewed, developed, deployed, scaled, managed and paid for. For partners, this can present challenges and a decrease in the value-add services they offer. For the past year, this has been at the top of our minds as we developed our new cloud-based digital workspace transformation service. The role our partners play in helping customers in their transformation strategies has been key in the development of our own strategy. Partners provide many very important roles in a client’s workspace transformation, from disaster recovery, multi-cloud integration to app virtualization etc. Our focus for this new service is to deliver a systematic framework that removes complexity and enables partners to drive transformation and lifecycle management of apps for their customers.
Just recently I had the opportunity, for which I’d like to thank Citrix, to present our new technology at their Partner Technical Expert Council (PTEC) EMEA. Launched at Citrix Synergy, our new service, Apps2Digital is based 100% on promoting Citrix Cloud as the platform of choice. The main takeaway I wanted to bring to these top technical experts is how this new service delivers an intelligent way to transform and manage apps across multi-cloud digital workspaces. By automating and simplifying the processes involved in workspace transformation, it allows them to focus more on the strategic goals of the businesses they are working to help.
A key innovation that enables this is the A2D Formula system. The A2D Formula system standardizes and automates the deployment of any type of software making the whole process repeatable. The complete automation of deployment and lifecycle management for apps such as Office 365 is just one example of how partners can develop new offerings for their clients. Compatible with any type of software, such as SAP, the service offers a large amount of commercial software formulas in our Apps Catalog. Partners can develop their own formulas for their customers’ commercial applications, as well as those developed in-house, offering new value-add services. For the end-user client they can now take full advantage of the potential and the flexibility of public clouds, as well as their existing platforms, while bringing the business units closer to the rollout of applications.
Across the business world what we are seeing is that it is users and their business units that are driving transformation. It’s our goal to enable organizations to take advantage of the benefits that greater IT agility bring to meet the needs of the business. During our PTEC presentation I discussed how our new service provides an inventory of applications in just a few days. This enables IT to start the prioritization and seamless deployment of virtual applications. And thanks to our connected application store, which is integrated within Citrix StoreFront, the partners were able to see firsthand how well these two technologies communicate and the ease of integration that Apps2Digital shares with Citrix Cloud.
It was a pleasure to share our vision with the knowledgeable technical partners at PTEC and gain further insights direct from our expert partners. I sincerely hope that in using their new Apps2Digital accounts they can demonstrate their value-add as partners in this new cloud age of constant change.
