If there’s anything the business world has learned over the past two years, it’s this: the very concept of “work” is an evolving, organic idea. It’s a living, breathing entity that is actively founded on the principles of market progression, the dynamics of talent and the workforce, and, most importantly, the very way “work” itself is optimized for better business outcomes.
The Future of Work has been defined as many things, but its core definition is as follows: modern business can be transformed for the sake of efficiency and effectiveness through the evolution of new talent-based strategies (particularly the extended workforce), the advent of disruptive technology and innovative tools, and the overall reimagination of business thinking and mindsets.
The COVID-19 pandemic had many, many ramifications on the world of work, however, none greater than the remote work awakening. Future of Work Exchange research has found that, during pre-pandemic times, nearly 21% of the average enterprise’s total talent base (FTEs and extended talent) was operating in a remote or hybrid environment. Going into 2022, that number has more than doubled; 43% of all enterprise talent are currently working remotely or in a hybrid work infrastructure.
Citrix has long been a forerunner of the “digital workspace” industry since its founding in 1989. Today, the tech behemoth is a staple of unified communications and automation, providing virtual desktop technology to nearly 400,000 customers across the world, including 98% of the Fortune 500.
Yesterday, news broke that private equity firms Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital had acquired Citrix for $16.5 billion in an all-cash deal. The plan is to match and merge Citrix’s wide range of digital workspace and unified communications tech with TIBCO, a Vista portfolio company that seamlessly integrates applications and data across the enterprise technology infrastructure.
“The combination of TIBCO with Citrix will be a game changer. Over the past three decades, Citrix has established itself as the leader in remote work, providing secure and reliable access to all the applications and information employees need to get work done, wherever it needs to get done,” said Tim Minahan, Executive Vice President of Business Strategy, Citrix. “With the addition of TIBCO’s connected intelligence capabilities and solutions, we can enhance our digital workspace platform and the results we help our customers to achieve.”
The essence of this acquisition is a straight Future of Work play: Citrix will have additional technological support to expand its virtual desktop platform with the necessary arsenal to provide real-time intelligence, seamless integrations, and enterprise-grade security in a digital working environment.
A source close to the deal confirmed this vision. “[The acquisition] is certainly a testament to the overall strengths of the [Citrix] platform and the executive team’s long-term vision of where the product can go during these evolving times,” the source said, adding that “this is a “proof of delivery” of the remote work work model.”
This is a Future of Work gamechanger, for sure. The acquisition, and subsequent merger, means that Citrix’s incredible breadth of workspace technology can be buoyed by TIBCO’s cloud-fueled integrations and real-time data and intelligence. These two facets, in a convergence unseen in the enterprise solutions market, is a transformative shift towards a more secure, more flexible, and, most importantly, a more agile, hybrid cloud infrastructure for businesses across the world.
Additional Future of Work Exchange analysis:
- One of the biggest “knocks” on the digital workspace/remote work environment is its lack of enterprise-level data security. TIBCO’s robust strengths in this critical attribute will help Citrix expand its overall reach to include those organizations that were once trigger-shy when it came to a hybrid workplace due to concerns over security of financial data, intellectual property, etc.
- The concept of “better business outcomes” has long been a core Future of Work mindset. The Citrix/TIBCO merger translates into the ability to “blend” virtual workspace technology with agile analytics and intelligence….meaning that, no matter where a professional is located, they can make more educated business decisions by tapping into the same stout data that is available when tethered to an in-person IT infrastructure.
- With the extended workforce expected to comprise half of the average company’s total talent pool by the end of the year, this deal reinforces another Future of Work shift, one that relies heavily on non-employee remote workers that require access to enterprise systems, IP, data, and other critical assets in order to get work done effectively.
- This deal, which taking into account the combined Citrix/TIBCO solution, is the largest ($25 billion) private equity deal in enterprise tech history. The move displays a level of utmost confidence in Citrix’s current and future ability to deliver on its greater Future of Work vision.
