Q&A with Brett Johnson of Centrix Software
VSM: I’ve read that Centrix Software is aggressively expanding in the U.S. Can you give us an update of what you’re doing and why?
BJ: We’re seeing tremendous demand for Centrix Software’s WorkSpace iQ and WorkSpace Universal solutions across all customer segments, as well as from technology vendor alliances and channel partners. Our success has emerged as a result of major marketplace trends driving demand for our product offerings. Corporate end users now expect the ability to access content and applications on any device, from any location, at any time. For companies able to deliver such access, making use of the proliferation of technologies and cloud offerings now available, there are significant productivity benefits, but there are also considerable risks in terms of preserving corporate IT’s overall visibility and necessary security controls. With companies exploring an abundance of desktop transformation technologies, including virtualization (desktop, application, user) and cloud computing, combined with the disruptive challenge of addressing Windows 7 / 8 migrations, there is incredible demand for our desktop transformation analytics and application and content broker products both in the U.K., where we are headquartered, and here in the U.S.
Beginning in late 2011, we started to aggressively focus on meeting the growing U.S. market demand. Since then, we’ve expanded our U.S. team with desktop transformation experts who have deep experience from VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, and other client virtualization vendors. We’ve signed major new customers and a number of strategic partners. Our unique approach to analyzing end-user computing environments and aggregating delivery of diverse applications and content has been validated by key influencers such as Gartner, which recently named us “Cool Vendor in Client Computing,” and Red Herring, which named us a Global Top 100 Tech Startup. Stay tuned because we’ll be making a number of announcements regarding new customers, partners and product enhancements in the next few months.
VSM: There are several end-user computing assessment products on the market. What are you hearing from companies who have used them?
BJ: Many companies we work with have previously done some level of desktop assessment using other products, and the consensus has been that those assessments only address a limited set of the desktop transformation considerations – and lack the analytical depth for use in detailed planning exercises. Before the introduction of our Workspace iQ offering, which was built from the ground up to deliver this kind of insight, assessment products emerged from user experience monitoring vendors. Philosophically, the other offerings are designed as monitoring tools that sample data (focusing primarily on device and network/system data, with limited information collected about applications, users, usage and corporate context), with the objective being to identify user experience problems. WorkspaceiQ, on the other hand, was designed as the foundation of our workspace aggregation delivery platform, Workspace Universal, and required considerably more analytical depth. Because WorkspaceiQ is designed for integration with other data sets (such as HR system data), for example, we are able combine intelligence about the users and their application/content/device/location usage in context of their role within the organization, resulting in a far more actionable data set, delivered in very consumable and actionable reports for different constituencies (including end users, when integrated with Workspace Universal). WorkspaceiQ analytics are both an invaluable component of our customer’s desktop transformation initiatives, and a very reliable and comprehensive asset for ongoing planning and recommendations.
