Citrix court Australian networking VARs

Citrix will use its current channel base and recruit new networking resellers to drive uptake for its recently formed networking application division.

Dean Vaughan has been appointed as channel development manager for Australia and New Zealand, replacing Wendy Smith who has been promoted to a Pacific role. Vaughan will spearhead the new division and has networking experience from his time at vendor 3Com.

Vaughan told CRN: “We are expanding into the networking application space and we need to formulate our channel to achieve this goal. In A/NZ we have a solid base of partners in place who are loyal to Citrix.”

Citrix are not becoming a comms vendor, Vaughan insisted, and the new division is attempting to better manage how applications perform over the wide-area network.

“We want to develop with our current partners so they can understand the issues and we are talking to new comms integrators which are strong in infrastructure,” he said.

Vaughan said the division would encompass four key products: a WAN optimisation product, an application delivery switch, an access gateway product and an application firewall.

Citrix will also be hosting a Sydney-based partner event over the 13 and 14 March, with 300 attendees expected.