The goal of the partnership is to ensure Citrix Service Provider partners ‘have the level of coverage, service, technical support, so on and so forth that they need to be effective in their business and maintain flexibility in the model in which they want to consume,’ says Ethan Fitzsimons, Citrix’s channel chief.

Citrix, a business unit of Cloud Software Group, will start a new strategic partnership with Arrow Electronics on Oct. 1 that will task the distributor with sales, marketing and technical support for channel partners consuming less than 2,000 Citrix Service Provider licenses across North America and Europe.

The goal is to make sure these CSP partners—which include MSPs and ISVs—“have the level of coverage, service, technical support, so on and so forth that they need to be effective in their business and maintain flexibility in the model in which they want to consume,” Ethan Fitzsimons, Citrix channel chief, told CRN in an interview.

“Arrow will help bridge that gap and facilitate that for those partners to still give them a path to grow,” said Fitzsimons, whose official title with Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Citrix is vice president and head of global channels.

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Citrix-Arrow Deal

Mike Strohl, CEO of Concord, Calif.-based Citrix partner e360—No. 128 on CRN’s 2024 Solution Provider 500—told CRN in an interview that the Citrix Enterprise Browser in particular has seen strong demand from customers lately.

While the 2022 take-private deal for Citrix by investment firms that combined the virtualization and desktop delivery vendor with enterpise software vendor Tibco and formed parent company Cloud Software Group created short-term uncertainty for Citrix customers, the quality of Citrix’s products is keeping the vendor competitive, Strohl said. Citrix’s platform strategy is resonating in the market.

“Yes, they have new requirements around licensing and how customers both procure as well as consume what they have overall, but it seems like the noise is settling a little bit,” Strohl said. “There are things happening that are actually impacting things in a positive way at the end of the day for Citrix.”

Fitzsimons told CRN that the Arrow partnership should help partners adapting to the annual commitment model Citrix moved to this year. The CSP model historically has been month to month.

So far, Citrix has moved hundreds of partners to the new model. Citrix’s partner count total is in the thousands.

“It’s been really successful through the year and really been something that has been well-received in particular by our larger partners,” Fitzsimons said. “But as we engage more and more into some of our smaller CSP partners around the world, the transition for them from a monthly consumption-based model to an annual model was more difficult for them to manage.”

The Arrow partnership should help smaller Citrix partners increase profitability and land new customers, especially smaller customers and midmarket ones, Fitzsimons said.

“Those partners still have the flexibility of maintaining a resale relationship with us as well,” he said. “Depending on how the customer wants to consume, they still have both options.”

The Arrow deal has “no impact” on Citrix’s other distributor relationships, he said. Citrix inked the new deal with Arrow in part because of the success of the ArrowSphere digital platform, which includes the distributor’s entire line card, cloud life-cycle management and quote-to-cash transaction automation, among other capabilities.