Citrix+XenSource Execs explain the(ir?) future moves

After the acquisition, every internet news agency wants to talk to them and the execs are definitely willing to tell us all. We don't see or hear about any future products. We have yet to see what the current products have had to offer, but anyways, the interview is here:

INFORMATIONWEEK: Will there be a continued role for Cambridge University researcher Ian Pratt, originator of Xen, in the ongoing project?

Levine: Absolutely, Ian Pratt will play a role.

Wasson: From the Citrix side, we actually loved the huge effort you get from the open source project... And the folks who are important contributors are often at Intel, IBM, HP, Novell... The independent oversight board will be composed of leaders contributing to the project.

INFORMATIONWEEK: You have staff at Palo Alto, Calif., Redmond, Wash., and Cambridge University in the UK. How are your 80 employees divided up?

Levine: Palo Alto includes the sales and marketing staff. Redmond includes the engineering group working with Microsoft(MSFT) and Cambridge is another engineering group. It's about one-third each.

INFORMATIONWEEK: Is the work being done with Microsoft separate from the open source work?

Levine: The reason for an engineering office in Redmond is our strategic relationship with Microsoft. It started over a year ago, before any talks with Citrix. It was crystal clear to me that the bulk of the virtualization market was going to be among Windows customers. Red Hat and Novell had already embedded Xen in Linux, and Linux was going to be a much smaller market.

Wasson: We want to preserve a great relationship with Microsoft, one that's pretty unique. What XenSource is doing with Microsoft in virtualization mirrors what Citrix did in Windows Terminal Services. We helped extend the Microsoft product. We got the right stuff [Citrix Presentation Server and proprietary ICA protocol] into their environment. For every dollar of Presentation Server we sell, Microsoft gets 75 cents.

We gave code to Microsoft that became part of the core of Windows Terminal Services and got source code rights to Windows Server. We work with Microsoft on things that are years in advance. Microsoft is tremendously willing to do that when you're not pretending that things that should go into the operating system [such as the virtualization hypervisor] is not available to them and will be supplied somewhere else. VMware is thinking of itself as an operating system vendor and Microsoft competitor. They want to compete with the Windows operating system.

So have no fear open source community, you will not be forgotten. Same applies to Microsoft.

Check out the interview.