NetScaler reclaims identity after Citrix, Tibco merge as ‘Cloud Software Group’

Other business units also made full members of group, perhaps hinting and spin-outs

The deal to merge Citrix and Tibco has closed, and the two companies are now business units of a new entity called “Cloud Software Group” – as is NetScaler, the application delivery controller brand that Citrix acquired way back in 2005 but recently re-branded as “Citrix ADC”.

NetScaler’s return as a standalone entity was not flagged during the lengthy process of taking Citrix private and mashing it into Tibco.

The Group, which has scored the cloud.com domain, has also named Jaspersoft, ibi, and ShareFile as members.

The latter is Citrix’s corporate cloud storage locker, Jaspersoft and ibi are Tibco acquisitions, the former providing dashboards and reporting wares and the latter offers the business intelligence products Tibco acquired along with Information Builders in 2021.

The Group has published a statement and accompanying FAQ in which it is made plain that Citrix and Tibco’s product lines won’t merge. The decision to name NetScaler, ibi, Jaspersoft and ShareFile has discrete group members is not explained other than with the throwaway line that “major solution lines from Citrix and TIBCO will also exist as separate business units within Cloud Software Group.”

Speculation has already emerged that’s code for the business units being up for sale. That outcome is considered a strong possibility because, as explained by The American Prospect, the complex private equity deal to merge Citrix and Tibco proved unexpectedly difficult to conclude amid rising interest rates and economic uncertainty.

Abhilash Verma, NetScaler’s veep for app delivery and security product management, has outlined what it will mean to be a member of the Cloud Software Group.

“The acquisition of Citrix by a private company gives us the opportunity to focus on doing what’s best for our customers,” he wrote, seemingly suggesting that Citrix has not always done so. “We plan to invest more into NetScaler, which includes enhancing the integration with Citrix VDI and DaaS solutions as well as continuing to develop the functionality that our traditional NetScaler customers need to modernize their IT.” Verma also noted that NetScaler “can provide the transaction telemetry in multiple formats (Appflow, Logstream, IPFIX) to any other third-party or homegrown tool for subsequent analysis.”

Now that it has its own brand back, the NetScaler business unit will “double down on integration so that our customers have the freedom to choose the tools that suit them best.”

Citrix staff, meanwhile, have taken to sites like The Layoff with news of requests to use all remaining paid time off and other incidents taken as signs that layoffs are coming. ®