Phil Dean-Jones

Citrix's Australia-based director of field sales, Phil Dean-Jones, said the firm had had "no other choice" than to raise prices, and that it was a decision it had been examining for some time as the US dollar had trended down.

Asked if Citrix would hike its prices further if the US dollar fell further, the executive said the price increases revealed this morning were the first such the company had had to undertake in the time he'd been working for Citrix: more than 9 years.

Dean-Jones said Citrix would "absolutely" revise its prices downward if the US dollar rose in value again.He said there had been no fallout from local Citrix customers yet.

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Phil Dean-Jones, channel sales director at Citrix, said the software vendor would almost certainly lose partners this year that did not fit into its channel strategy.

However, he could not say or even guess how many of Citrixâ€s 220 resellers would be affected.

“We want to get the right partners covering the right spaces,†Dean-Jones said.

Also, Citrix was continuing to ask its resellers to jump through more certification hoops -- a move that was largely a result of Citrix†assessment of customer needs and demands, he said.

Certain customers had even asked for resellers to have more expertise, Dean-Jones said.

A pre-requisite qualification -- the Citrix Certified Advisor (CCA) grade -- would no longer be sufficient in many cases.Many more would be expected to pass the Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator test, which was now much harder, he said.
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Yet Citrix needed to ensure the right mix of partners and approaches to its channel, Dean-Jones said.

“We do all our business through channels but to be received by large corporate and government customers as a serious vendor, we have to be able to represent ourselves directly,†he said.

Philip Dean-JonesCitrix Systems AustraliaServer Based Computer/Thin Client Computing