Citrix Systems has cut executive and staff positions -- including layoffs across California, North Carolina and Florida, according to The Register.
Related Update - April 4, 2019: Rumor Citrix is exploring potential company sale, seeking buyers.
The apparent cuts come roughly two months after the virtualization software company in January 2019 announced a somewhat weaker-than-expected revenue forecast for Q1 of fiscal 2019.
Apparent company departures include Manoj Raisinghani, the VP of product marketing for networking, analytics and security; and Senior Director of Business Strategy Christine Harkin, according to The Register. Citrix declined to comment for that article; ChannelE2E has not independently confirmed that report.
The apparent changes come ahead of the next Citrix earnings call on April 24, 2019, and the Citrix Synergy 2019 conference in May. That conference will cover six content areas: workspace, networking, analytics, virtual apps and desktops, content collaboration and endpoint management.
Citrix Systems: Growing and Evolving
Citrix may be struggling to shift customers from traditional software licenses to subscription services, The Register speculates. Still, it's important to keep the company's challenges in context. Indeed, Citrix was still growing and solidly profitable heading into 2019.
For instance:
- Revenue was $802 million in Q4 of fiscal 2018, up from $778 million in Q4 of fiscal 2017.
- Net income was $166 million in Q4 of fiscal 2018, compared to a net loss of $284 million in Q4 of fiscal 2017.
Describing the 2018 results, President and CEO David Henshall said in January 2019:
“I am very pleased with our strong fourth quarter and full year results. All of our key performance metrics came in at or above the targets we provided. More importantly, our subscription model transition accelerated."
Citrix Systems: Channel Partners and Subscription Incentives
And during that January 2019 earnings call, Henshall insisted the company was well-aligned with partners following a summit earlier that month. Among his statements at the time:
"As somebody who's been to the last 17 partner summits, it was one of our best ever. I'd say the alignment across the go-to-market teams, both partners and Citrix-badged, is as high as it's ever been, and the enthusiasm is good because partners were successful in 2018."
Still, he conceded partner compensation incentives would shift in 2019. For instance, 2018 partner incentives involved net new product and net new subscription engagements. Next up, Citrix has introduced incentives around actual usage of those cloud solutions . He noted:
"And so as customers are successful, then the partner gets an additional incentive on the back end of that. That's more of just continuous engagement overall."
We'll be seeking updates from Citrix as the next earnings call and conference unfolds in April and May 2019, respectively.
