Citrix accelerates cloud strategy with acquisition of ShareFile

Citrix Systems recently announced it has completed the acquisition of ShareFile, a market leading provider of secure, cloud-based data storage, sharing and collaboration. The ShareFile product line makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to securely store, sync and share business documents and files, both inside and outside the company, Citrix said.

ShareFile’s centralised cloud storage capability also allows users to share files across multiple devices and access them from any location, the company said. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Based on industry estimates, Citrix expects the personal cloud market to be a multi-billion dollar opportunity by 2015, fueled by trends such as cloud computing, faster bandwidth, email limitations and the consumerisation of IT. With the acquisition of ShareFile, Citrix is adding “follow-me-data” capabilities to its portfolio, allowing business users to access their documents and files from anywhere,  share them across multiple devices and collaborate easily with colleagues, the company added.

The acquisition of ShareFile brings to Citrix a powerful new technology platform and a talented team with deep experience in data services and cloud computing. ShareFile CEO, Jesse Lipson, will become VP and GM of the newly-formed Data Sharing product group at Citrix.

Lipson said, “Joining the Citrix team will provide a great home to the thousands of ShareFile corporate customers, serving millions of users worldwide. The combination of Citrix and ShareFile will also help spur incredible new innovation around the role of data in the new Cloud Era workplace.”

According to Citrix, this group will be responsible for the ShareFile product line, as well as enabling the Citrix “follow-me-data” strategy.

“This is a highly strategic acquisition that enables Citrix to deliver all three of the critical components for the personal cloud – collaboration, apps and data – with amazing accessibility and productivity on any device. Our follow-me-data strategy means data will be shared across people, across apps and across devices. As customers and partners build on this platform, they will be able to easily add follow-me-data services to their software, leverage the data that other apps store there, and instantly inherit all the management, mobility and scalability that’s in the ShareFile infrastructure,” said Mark Templeton, president and CEO of Citrix Systems.