Cloud computing giant Citrix recently announced that it would be acquired by affiliates of Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Corporation. The all-cash deal is valued at $16.5 billion, including debt. 

On G2, Citrix describes itself as a company focused on “sharing insights in cloud, mobile, virtualization, collaboration, and networking.” Vista is one of the largest investment firms supporting technology businesses worldwide in the enterprise software space. Evergreen is owned by Elliott Management Corporation, one of the oldest fund managers in the world.

The deal signifies a new era of enterprise offerings

A notable point of this acquisition is Citrix’s merger with Vista-owned TIBCO Software, a key data integration, management, and analytics company. With the world pivoting towards hybrid workplace environments, the Citrix-TIBCO merger holds potential value. The mix of Citrix’s unified digital workspace technology and TIBCO’s connected intelligence platform offerings will ensure customers have a smooth, seamless hybrid work culture and experiences. 

The combination of Citrix’s collaborative tools and TIBCO’s connected intelligence and analytics offerings could potentially change the enterprise software industry by becoming a one-stop shop for all enterprise business needs to support a company’s hybrid mode of working. In the long run, this merger will help organizations across the globe on their digital transformation journey by not just enabling hybrid workspace support but also complete and connected data intelligence support to drive business analytics.

How will the deal benefit both companies?

With the merger, the new firm could become one of the largest software vendors in the world, serving over 400,000 customers, with 100 million users in over 100 countries, according to Citrix’s announcement.

G2 observed in the recently released Enterprise Grid® Report for iPaaS for Winter 2022 that one of TIBCO’s leading products, TIBCO Cloud Integration, fared lower than competitors in the “product going in the right direction” criteria. TIBCO Cloud Integration fared 72% compared to an overall average of 89%. This shows that while 92% of G2 reviewers support that the product meets their requirements, they do not feel the same about product direction. A lack of a strategic roadmap is evident, and reviewer sentiment reflects the same.

The mix of Citrix offerings such as Citrix Workspace (featuring Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops),  Citrix Content Collaboration, Citrix ShareFile, among many others, along with TIBCO’s cloud offerings such as TIBCO’s Cloud Integration (including BusinessWorks and Scribe), could help alleviate the above concern. 

Aaron Walker, G2’s Research Principal, Cybersecurity, says:

"The Citrix and TIBCO merger is an interesting mix of complementary technologies. Citrix has made a home in the virtualization, networking, and security spaces. TIBCO's technologies should bolster their connectivity solutions and add deep business intelligence and integration capabilities. The new technology fills that gap for Citrix, which is important to facilitate digital transformation today."

TIBCO Cloud Integration and Citrix Workspace lie in the Leader quadrant for the iPaaS Software and Unified Workspaces Software categories, respectively. The merger of these companies will create a more clear, concise offering for the market that supports future hybrid workspaces.

Edited by Shanti S Nair