SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Citrix today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held Bytemobile, a leading provider of data and video optimization solutions for mobile network operators. This acquisition gives Citrix a key strategic foothold in the core infrastructure of more than 130 mobile operators in 60 countries around the world, significantly extending the company’s market reach, and enhancing the broader Citrix strategy of powering mobile workstyles and cloud services.
With the advent of the Cloud Era, mobile operators are experiencing explosive growth in network traffic, driven by the combination of new consumer devices, rich multimedia content, and high speed 3G, 4G and LTE networks. By joining forces, Citrix and Bytemobile will be able to offer these operators combined solutions that deliver a high quality user experience to mobile subscribers, while helping operators manage the exponential growth of mobile network traffic with the best performance, visibility and efficiency. The acquisition builds on a strategic partnership announced earlier this year that combined the Bytemobile Smart Capacity™ technology with the Citrix NetScaler® line of cloud networking solutions.
This transaction has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close during the third quarter of 2012. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Citrix expects to discuss the acquisition in greater detail when it reports financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2012. Upon the close of this acquisition, Bytemobile will form a new Service Provider Platforms team as part of the Citrix Cloud Networking product group.
Cloud Networking Meets Mobile Data
The acquisition of Bytemobile expands the market reach of Citrix from its existing leadership position with enterprise and cloud provider customers, into the rapidly growing mobile telecommunications space. Bytemobile brings Citrix leading technology, award-winning products, a strong customer base, and 12 years of customer relationships and deployment experience in mobile telecommunications. Bytemobile customers today serve more than 2 billion subscribers and process more than 20 petabytes of data traffic through customer networks daily.
Based near Citrix Silicon Valley headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., Bytemobile has approximately 300 employees, including product, sales and services teams around the world. In addition to optimizing mobile data and video traffic, Bytemobile solutions enable mobile operators to differentiate data service plans based on a wide variety of factors, including quality of experience and subscriber usage.
“The cloud and mobile revolutions are rapidly converging, and mobile operators are at the heart of this convergence,” said Klaus Oestermann, group vice president and general manager of cloud networking at Citrix. “With the integration of Bytemobile technology, products and intellectual capital, Citrix will be uniquely positioned to be a leader in the global mobile data and video infrastructure market in the LTE era.”
Since announcing their earlier strategic partnership at Mobile World Congress in February 2012, Citrix and Bytemobile have collaborated to deliver the Bytemobile T1100 Traffic Director, which helps operators scale next-generation mobile networks and apps with the application delivery intelligence and performance of the NEBS-compliant Citrix NetScaler platform. With this acquisition, Citrix and Bytemobile will further accelerate the ability to bring mobile operators a wide range of powerful solutions to enable mobile workstyles and power cloud services.
“The integration of Bytemobile will enable us to extend our value proposition to the edge of the network, bringing content closer to the end user,” continued Oestermann. “The benefits to network operators and their subscribers include faster, more efficient, more reliable, and more manageable networks; higher performance resulting in better service and a better user experience; and scalability to process growing volumes of data traffic at a much lower cost.”
Commitment to Game-Changing Innovation
Citrix plans to build on Bytemobile as the center of its go-to-market strategy for mobile network operators – retaining and growing its investment in the Bytemobile brand, technology, products, employees and customer relationships. Bytemobile will continue as an independent product group within the Citrix cloud networking group, leveraging clear synergies with adjacent technologies such as Citrix NetScaler.
“We are excited about the significance of this transaction for the industry, our customers, our employees, and our stockholders,” said Chris Koopmans, chief operating officer of Bytemobile. “With the rollout of LTE and other next-generation networks, the mobile data market is poised to grow dramatically in the coming years. The addition of Bytemobile solutions to the Citrix portfolio will accelerate the fulfillment of our vision and investment in the future of the industry.”
About Bytemobile products
The Bytemobile technology portfolio includes a wide array of applications that include video and web optimization, content caching, policy control, traffic management, mobile analytics and deep packet inspection (DPI). Applications are deployed in the core of the mobile network on the company’s two Smart Capacity platforms – the Unison™ Platform and the T-Series Adaptive Traffic Management System.
About Citrix
Citrix (NASDAQ: CTXS) transforms how businesses, people and IT work in the cloud era. Market leading products for collaboration, virtualization, and networking allow Citrix to enable mobile workstyles and power cloud services for 100’s of millions of people every day. We service over 260,000 organizations with over 10,000 business partners in 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2011 was $2.21 billion. Learn more at our company headquarters at www.citrix.com.
For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance. Investors are cautioned that statements in this press release, which are not strictly historical statements, including, without limitation, statements by Citrix and our executives concerning the proposed acquisition of Bytemobile; Citrix’s partnership with Bytemobile; the anticipated growth of the telco and mobile operator market; mobile data traffic and customer demands; Citrix’s position in the mobile data and video infrastructure market; the anticipated timing of closing the acquisition; integration plans and synergies; capabilities of certain of Bytemobile’s technologies; Citrix’s go-to-market plans; expectations for Bytemobile and the Citrix cloud networking group and management’s plans, objectives and strategies, constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, the possibility that the acquisition of Bytemobile may not close; that the closing may be delayed or that the companies may be required to modify aspects of the acquisition to obtain regulatory approvals; the satisfaction of closing conditions to the acquisition; the reaction of customers of Citrix and Bytemobile to the proposed acquisition; Citrix’s timing and ability to successfully support and integrate Bytemobile’s technologies, products, operations (including migration of Bytemobile to Citrix systems and controls) and employees; the introduction of new technologies and products by competitors or the entry of new competitors into the markets for Citrix and Bytemobile technologies and products; the failure by Citrix to retain key employees of Bytemobile; failure to further develop and successfully market Bytemobile’s technologies and products, including failure to execute Citrix sales and marketing plans and failure to successfully partner with key distributors, resellers, original equipment manufacturers and strategic partners; failure to achieve or maintain anticipated revenues and operating performance contributions from Bytemobile; failure to comply with federal, state and international regulations; the impact of the global economy and uncertainty in the IT spending environment, including Citrix European markets; the success and growth of our product lines; our product concentration and ability to develop and commercialize new products and services while maintaining sales of our established products; disruptions due to changes in key personnel and succession risks; seasonal fluctuations in our business; our reliance on and the success of partners for the marketing and distribution of Citrix products; our ability to maintain and expand Citrix’s business in small sized and large enterprise accounts; the size, timing and recognition of revenue from significant orders; the success of investments in our product groups, foreign operations and vertical and geographic markets; the management of anticipated future growth; the recruitment and retention of qualified employees; risks in effectively controlling operating expenses, including failure to manage unexpected expenses; impairment of the value of our investments; the effect of new accounting pronouncements on revenue and expense recognition; litigation and disputes, including challenges to our intellectual property rights or allegations of infringement of the intellectual property rights of third parties; the inability to further innovate our technology due to the intellectual property rights of third parties; changes in our pricing and licensing models, promotional programs and product mix, all of which may impact Citrix revenue recognition or those of our competitors; charges in the event of the impairment of assets acquired through business combinations and licenses; competition, international market readiness and execution risks; unanticipated changes in tax rates or exposure to additional tax liabilities; risks of political and social turmoil and other risks detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release or with respect to the announcements described herein.
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