Citrix channel chief drilled

o you don't intend to replace VMware with XenSource? A customer could use both?
Monserrat: A person could use both. The intent is just to have it as an option. Ultimately, we trust the channel to drive those decisions.

What we foresee in terms of application delivery is [that] customers will always have mixed solutions. You always have specific individuals at an organization that want to use a typical desktop PC; you'll have individuals for whom a blade PC is the right solution; you'll have individuals for whom a virtual machine is the right one; and you'll have Citrix Presentation Server customers. Depending on the organization, depending on the actual users of the technology, the right choice may vary.

The benefits we have are that Citrix has nearly 200,000 customers. VMware is undoubtedly the No. 1 player in the virtualization market, but there's more than enough room for multiple companies to be successful in that space.

How can resellers make money selling XenSource?
Monserrat: For XenSource we are providing the same kind of profitable business growth opportunities that our channel partners have had with the rest of the Citrix product line in the past. The Advisory Rewards program that we have, we are going to adapt that program for the XenSource product.

Depending on deal size -- or if a reseller registers a deal -- resellers can make anywhere from 5% to 10%. That's 5% or 10% on the suggested retail price (SRP). We do run additional promotions for specific products, so for example this year, we've had an additional 5% bonus on the networking products.

When you think about the networking products in this example, [resellers] could be making the 10% on the deal plus the 5% bonus and -- because it's on SRP -- once you factor in any discounts that the channel may have had, they could be making 20% or 22%. That's actually very profitable for that space.

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