What is Citrix Workspace

In May of 2018, the Citrix Workspace was announced.  There has been a lot of discussion about what is a digital workspace and what does it mean for the modern employee.  Twenty years ago when I joined the workforce, a workspace meant a desktop in a cube probably running Windows 95.  If you were not in that cube, no work was getting done--it was cut and dry.  Flash forward to 2018, and work happens on a desktop, on a phone, on a tablet and it could be almost anywhere.  All of these things make up the modern digital workspace.

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Citrix VP Steve Wilson (@virtualsteve) to talk about the new Citrix Workspace this week.  Steve was in Denver to talk to customers and I was delighted to get a few moments of his time.

Photo credit @virtualsteve

Steve is one of the big names you see on the keynote stage at events like Citrix Synergy or Citrix Summit.  Below is his section from Synergy 2018 in Anaheim.


 

As the Citrix VP for Cloud and IoT, Steve has an interesting focus on where these two technologies meet. We compared notes on IoT devices we have in our homes and also discussed how this is going to creep into the business world more and more. This is no secret with big names focusing their efforts on IoT like Amazon with their Alexa for Business line and Microsoft's investment into Azure IoT Hub.  While Citrix is no stranger to IoT, it was exciting to hear about some of the things Steve and team are working on. Cool stuff, that I definitely can not talk about in a public blog post.  All I can say is I can not wait for my next trip to Orlando.

Quickly the topic changed to the Citrix Workspace.  Big promises were made during the Synergy keynote in May that the Workspace would be available to customers 90 days.  Those promises have been met and we are already seeing customers leverage the platform.  In my mind, it really is a platform that can be built upon.  I have been excited about the Citrix Workspace for some time now but Steve pointed out a few exciting ways the Workspace could grow to make it easier for employees to get work done.

Today you can leverage it to access Windows apps and desktops, Linux apps and desktops, software as service applications (SaaS) like Workday and Salesforce.com.  Possibly more important than the apps is it can also aggregate your files.  Check out what this looks like with the 8-minute video below.




If you are new to the idea of a digital workspace.  Here is a short video series titled #WorkspaceUnplugged by Steve and Joe (@joevaccaro) where they get into the why, how, and what this is all about.  Each video is only a couple of minutes and they are listed in order.

Welcome to the the 1st episode of #WorkspaceUnplugged with @virtualsteve and @joevaccaro. In this installment we talk about how the messy world of cloud transformation drives the need for the @citrix Workspace pic.twitter.com/WxCR9SL2Ql

— Steve Wilson (@virtualsteve) August 20, 2018

Episode 2 of #WorkspaceUnplugged is out. Today we'll dive a little deeper into the @citrix Workspace App and learn about some key capabilities with @virtualsteve and @joevaccaro. We'd love to hear your feedback on these and hear your ideas for future topics! pic.twitter.com/S5N4BX5YCX

— Steve Wilson (@virtualsteve) August 23, 2018

Episode 3 of #WorkspaceUnplugged covers how @citrix Analytics changes the game for Workspace security when your security perimeter needs to expand to cover the entire Internet. pic.twitter.com/WlxO1uJSlG

— Steve Wilson (@virtualsteve) August 28, 2018

Episode 4 of #WorkspaceUnplugged with @joevaccaro. Let's talk about getting really hybrid! pic.twitter.com/Xi9R1dF0WM

— Steve Wilson (@virtualsteve) September 6, 2018

I hope that this has been a good overview of Citrix Workspace.  I am excited about what has been delivered in the first couple of months but I am very excited about what is coming.

Brian @sagelikebrian