Citrix acquired and merged with Tibco for $16.5B(cloud.com)
cloud.com
Citrix acquired and merged with Tibco for $16.5B
https://www.cloud.com/news/press-release.html
190 comments
Your background missed Elliot’s 5yr+ activist history towards Citrix since 2015, with a brief break around 2020. At the time of this deal, they owned ~12% of Citrix. After 2020 board changes, Elliot bought back into Citrix around Q3 21, so at best around $95-100/sh. This deal pays out $104/sh. So it’s almost a rollover from their equity to PE fund.
Elliot is obsessed with Citrix, and this is furthering their conviction with leverage to boost their opportunity.
Elliot is obsessed with Citrix, and this is furthering their conviction with leverage to boost their opportunity.
You're right that it's not paying out Vista much if anything at all when you account for fees, but it's still a nine-figure sum of new money in, which is lifeblood for these zombie B2B software companies to get a few more shots on goal to fix their situation.
Recap of Elliot saga (included ex-Microsoft CEO for 18 months, with $24M signing bonus and $32M severance), https://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/news/citrix-hensh...
I disagree this is necessarily good for PE. PE/late stage VC used to have a game plan for how to dress these companies up to get huge growth multipliers, and then stick them in the S&P 500, but that game looks dead. Tiger Global was the poster child for this, and their -50% returns this year should be sending everyone back to the drawing board.
Unless Vista really thinks they can manipulate the old tech companies the way Figma's investors worked over Adobe, then I don't think the results will be great.
Unless Vista really thinks they can manipulate the old tech companies the way Figma's investors worked over Adobe, then I don't think the results will be great.
This is a completely different universe from VC, Tiger, Figma or even the public markets. Software companies like this (low growth, high cash flow) got absolutely eviscerated in the public markets over the last decade so they would never consider that. And TIBCO is about 20 years out from the growth they needed to attract VC money or money from Tiger. Won't bother with the Figma exit comparison. The universe of buyers after this company will either be a mega-club deal with a mix of PE firms, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, etc. or one of the hulking B2B software giants I had mentioned.
No matter how you want to couch it, PE firms got away with this one. They're content to grow the topline 4-8% per year and cash flows 10-15% (the real metric that matters because the company isn't growing enough to ever be valued on a revenue multiple but will be valued on an EBITDA or FCF multiple). At roughly 15,000 combined headcount today, I'd expect that number to be under 10,000 in 24 months.
No matter how you want to couch it, PE firms got away with this one. They're content to grow the topline 4-8% per year and cash flows 10-15% (the real metric that matters because the company isn't growing enough to ever be valued on a revenue multiple but will be valued on an EBITDA or FCF multiple). At roughly 15,000 combined headcount today, I'd expect that number to be under 10,000 in 24 months.
Honestly, this seems all rather reasonable?
These companies are basically dying. So might as well manage the decline and return money to investors.
It's good for the economy as a whole if employees move to other companies; instead of engaging in make-work.
These companies are basically dying. So might as well manage the decline and return money to investors.
It's good for the economy as a whole if employees move to other companies; instead of engaging in make-work.
It's macro-good and micro-bad.
On the good side, I was allowed to view this from the perspective of spreadsheets and board meetings and see the net gains. And also do follow-up analysis that showed the least product people retiring or moving to lower quality work while the most productive went on to do 10x better things.
The dark side isn't pretty. We still had to lay off tens of thousands, affecting hundreds of thousands indirectly localized to a handful of communities and cities. I've decimated neighborhoods before by the literal definition (10%+ move out to find work in other cities). And the data tells us that at least a couple of those people will die as a result of the layoffs at the 10K+ scale. Can't talk macro-productivity when that's happening. Too tone deaf.
On the good side, I was allowed to view this from the perspective of spreadsheets and board meetings and see the net gains. And also do follow-up analysis that showed the least product people retiring or moving to lower quality work while the most productive went on to do 10x better things.
The dark side isn't pretty. We still had to lay off tens of thousands, affecting hundreds of thousands indirectly localized to a handful of communities and cities. I've decimated neighborhoods before by the literal definition (10%+ move out to find work in other cities). And the data tells us that at least a couple of those people will die as a result of the layoffs at the 10K+ scale. Can't talk macro-productivity when that's happening. Too tone deaf.
In what terms are deals like these discussed internally? Your analysis was very matter-of-fact. Do internal documents speak the same way or do they have to dress it up in elaborate positive sounding lingo? (synergy, growth opportunity and the like).
Depends on the audience. Am I having a ground-truth level conversation with my deal team? Then everything is neutral. No positive or negative tones. Just assessment of what is good and bad, what could go right or wrong, and the process to build the probabilistic fan of outcomes that drives our target returns.
To my investment committee? We're in sell mode and using the positive coded language you outline. "We see $350M in day 1 synergies (this means fire thousands of people immediately). $600M by the end of our 180-day plan. And $1b by completion of our value creation plan 365 days post-close. This builds in a 1.8x floor for cash flow growth even if we're delayed in synergy realization and frees up cash for our go-to-market investments. Given the current GTM org returns $1 of ARR for every $1 spent, and our current market analysis of total whitespace, we plan on investing 30% of every dollar saved into our sales and marketing initiatives and additional 5% in a product refresh focused around key sales rep pain points like UI/UX and ease of use."
Even when we're selling to our IC, it's still very factual because these people are professional BS-detectors.
To my investment committee? We're in sell mode and using the positive coded language you outline. "We see $350M in day 1 synergies (this means fire thousands of people immediately). $600M by the end of our 180-day plan. And $1b by completion of our value creation plan 365 days post-close. This builds in a 1.8x floor for cash flow growth even if we're delayed in synergy realization and frees up cash for our go-to-market investments. Given the current GTM org returns $1 of ARR for every $1 spent, and our current market analysis of total whitespace, we plan on investing 30% of every dollar saved into our sales and marketing initiatives and additional 5% in a product refresh focused around key sales rep pain points like UI/UX and ease of use."
Even when we're selling to our IC, it's still very factual because these people are professional BS-detectors.
Haha. That’s some great dressing up. Thanks for the detailed reply.
I was mind-blown when I found that you could do this...effectively buying a company with that company's own money.
Michael Dell acquired EMC that way, and with some financial engineering, came out ahead with a few ten billions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/08/03/deal-of-...
Michael Dell acquired EMC that way, and with some financial engineering, came out ahead with a few ten billions.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/08/03/deal-of-...
It doesn't matter. At the end of the day it's all your money anyway, just in a different place. The following is a simplification, but the concept should (I hope) be clear.
Let's say you want to buy an asset that can generate revenue. Let's also assume you need to borrow the amount, that you don't have it lying around.
You could take out a loan, and back it with some other asset, like your car.
Or you can get the company to take out a loan.
If the Company makes money, that money goes to servicing the debt. Either way its "your money" servicing the debt.
There are reasons to select one approach over the other, but putting the loan in the company name is often better for tax, and personal asset protection, reasons.
So yes, you buy the company with its future profits, but ultimately that's why you buy it in the first place.
Let's say you want to buy an asset that can generate revenue. Let's also assume you need to borrow the amount, that you don't have it lying around.
You could take out a loan, and back it with some other asset, like your car.
Or you can get the company to take out a loan.
If the Company makes money, that money goes to servicing the debt. Either way its "your money" servicing the debt.
There are reasons to select one approach over the other, but putting the loan in the company name is often better for tax, and personal asset protection, reasons.
So yes, you buy the company with its future profits, but ultimately that's why you buy it in the first place.
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I would love to know what happened in these companies that failed after someone bought it then ploughed tons of money into them.
Having just left one, the core reason for the failure was a tech plan forced upon two companies that was so unrealistic it was always going to fail. A bit of me thinks it's the problem was the investor for setting up a terrible plan. But realistically, I think it's more the management of the two companies inability to explain to a growth board that you can't rewrite a 7-year application in 3-months.
Original Plan: Migrate extra features and data over to new platform 3-months. If it's just a migration it's a bad timeline but overal not a bad plan. Problem was, it was a rewrite. The new platform didn't have the core features.
3-months pass: The growth board invests more money increases time and focuses everyone to this. While everyone keeps calling it a migration.
Another 3-months pass: The growth board invests even more money, increases the dev team, hires consultants who have help with such programs in the past.
Another 6-months pass: Still not delivered. Patence is getting thin. This was meant to be a 3-month project and it's been a year and we're not there. Extra time given with being features removed from scope. Delivery date announced to partners.
Another 3-months pass: Delivery date coming up, announcements made they will migrate on the deadline.
1-week before delivery: Team find out core functionality still doesn't exist. Announce another 3-4 month delay. Patience getting very thin.
Next deadline: They release a half finished product because management is going to get fired if they don't.
Result: Investor realises everything has gone wrong. After about €50-100 million investment Tries to sell company for €400 million. Drops price to €200 million. Sells for €75 million while clearing debt. Announces €50 million gain.
While the pressure from the owning company did cause issues, the original issue comes from the fact someone let them think it would originally be a 3-month project. This is not to mention that developers were telling the company management these deadlines couldn't be met, including 6-weeks before the first announced delivery date yet they continued to try and go forward until they realised at the last minute they couldn't meet the deadline. Every time it was at the last minute they would announce the deadline couldn't be met. Every 3-4 months the teams were working toward deliverying on a deadline.
Having just left one, the core reason for the failure was a tech plan forced upon two companies that was so unrealistic it was always going to fail. A bit of me thinks it's the problem was the investor for setting up a terrible plan. But realistically, I think it's more the management of the two companies inability to explain to a growth board that you can't rewrite a 7-year application in 3-months.
Original Plan: Migrate extra features and data over to new platform 3-months. If it's just a migration it's a bad timeline but overal not a bad plan. Problem was, it was a rewrite. The new platform didn't have the core features.
3-months pass: The growth board invests more money increases time and focuses everyone to this. While everyone keeps calling it a migration.
Another 3-months pass: The growth board invests even more money, increases the dev team, hires consultants who have help with such programs in the past.
Another 6-months pass: Still not delivered. Patence is getting thin. This was meant to be a 3-month project and it's been a year and we're not there. Extra time given with being features removed from scope. Delivery date announced to partners.
Another 3-months pass: Delivery date coming up, announcements made they will migrate on the deadline.
1-week before delivery: Team find out core functionality still doesn't exist. Announce another 3-4 month delay. Patience getting very thin.
Next deadline: They release a half finished product because management is going to get fired if they don't.
Result: Investor realises everything has gone wrong. After about €50-100 million investment Tries to sell company for €400 million. Drops price to €200 million. Sells for €75 million while clearing debt. Announces €50 million gain.
While the pressure from the owning company did cause issues, the original issue comes from the fact someone let them think it would originally be a 3-month project. This is not to mention that developers were telling the company management these deadlines couldn't be met, including 6-weeks before the first announced delivery date yet they continued to try and go forward until they realised at the last minute they couldn't meet the deadline. Every time it was at the last minute they would announce the deadline couldn't be met. Every 3-4 months the teams were working toward deliverying on a deadline.
Thanks for this succinct analysis - you should start a finance newsletter!
> until it gets foisted on a company like Broadcom or IBM that would be happy to churn out billions in cash from it
How does this part work?
How does this part work?
The acquiring company basically cranks up their fees to the acquired customer base to weed out anyone that a. doesn't have deep pockets and b. has an alternative. The customers they are left with are then stuck with you and you can continue to ratchet up prices while cutting costs for years. of course this requires that the software in use is hard to replace, or in the parlance, has a big moat. if you get it right you can make billions with this strategy. after all, an unhappy customer makes more money than a happy prospect.
conversely, any start-up that can bridge the moat is guaranteed a thrilling ride.
conversely, any start-up that can bridge the moat is guaranteed a thrilling ride.
the vendor lock-in!
also, very important, if a company that is already a big powerful vendor buys this, then they can use their already existing leverage to ramp up prices. after all all now they can try to - and eventually will - upsell all kinds of shit, they will milk every "synergy" opportunity they can think of, will offer package deals (that look very good on paper, but of course increases the lockedin factor, and hides the real problem of keeping the company on the legacy shit).
also, very important, if a company that is already a big powerful vendor buys this, then they can use their already existing leverage to ramp up prices. after all all now they can try to - and eventually will - upsell all kinds of shit, they will milk every "synergy" opportunity they can think of, will offer package deals (that look very good on paper, but of course increases the lockedin factor, and hides the real problem of keeping the company on the legacy shit).
My guess is ruthlessly cut costs and gradually degrade remaining customer good will until it's a dessicated corpse.
The cost portion is right but good will from these companies degraded a decade ago. The game is now to do anything at all costs to prevent churn and downsells whether that's bribery, lying, cheating, stealing, lawsuits, etc.
Thanks! I was wondering how TIBCO could possibly still be around.
And I was wondering how Tom Krause heads the combined company (he was leading Broadcom's software arm until a few months ago!)
On one hand it can suggest, "so much going on -- how can I keep up?"
On the other hand: who wants to keep up with goings-on at places like TIBCO?
Though when it comes to Broadcom: it's news when their CEO isn't dealing drugs from an underground sex lair.
On the other hand: who wants to keep up with goings-on at places like TIBCO?
Though when it comes to Broadcom: it's news when their CEO isn't dealing drugs from an underground sex lair.
Thanks. Some very deep insights and market knowledge. Impressive.
Do you moonlight as a financial analyst for tech corporates? Cuz this was super informative. Thank you!
Thank you for the succinct analysis. It makes me wonder if the PE firms that think of these deals are borderline sociopaths - caring a lot more about money then people. It ALMOST reads as a sophisticated scam.
Haha, yes, "almost" :)
Do you have some dirt on the Infineon - Cypress deal? I am not very confident with how Cypress was doing.
Any chance you have a business blog?
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> [...] this black hole of a company [...]
> [...] massive waves of layoffs [...]
Given that you seem to like neither the ingredients nor the result of the merger, shouldn't you be happy, if they release workers so that they can join more societally productive ventures?
> [...] massive waves of layoffs [...]
Given that you seem to like neither the ingredients nor the result of the merger, shouldn't you be happy, if they release workers so that they can join more societally productive ventures?
I'm trying to be descriptive, not prescriptive. It's a black hole because these machines will acquire anything and feed it through the cash flow machine. Massive waves of layoffs because there will be multiple 1K+ layoffs coming over the next year or two as they execute the integration plan.
Massive waves of layoffs are bad for most people and usually great for the company but I won't put a value judgment on it. Some think it "leaves them free to pursue more productive things" and others think "that person is going to struggle for a while due to corporate greed for cash flow." Candidly, I've done several of these deals before where we merge two companies of similar complexity and lay off 50-70% of the combined headcount. The company almost always turns out better for it. Things are that inefficient past a certain FTE size.
For those laid off, it's a different story. An internal analysis done by consultants my team hired 3 years after a multi-stage layoff of 10K people found that >50% of those affected were materially worse off and only 10% were better off. Statistical analysis on the strongest prediction of negative outcomes was age. Nothing else was even close to as relevant.
Massive waves of layoffs are bad for most people and usually great for the company but I won't put a value judgment on it. Some think it "leaves them free to pursue more productive things" and others think "that person is going to struggle for a while due to corporate greed for cash flow." Candidly, I've done several of these deals before where we merge two companies of similar complexity and lay off 50-70% of the combined headcount. The company almost always turns out better for it. Things are that inefficient past a certain FTE size.
For those laid off, it's a different story. An internal analysis done by consultants my team hired 3 years after a multi-stage layoff of 10K people found that >50% of those affected were materially worse off and only 10% were better off. Statistical analysis on the strongest prediction of negative outcomes was age. Nothing else was even close to as relevant.
I just find it fascinating that I can go through my life and see things like this: "[Company I've never heard of] and [Another company I've never heard of], something something, billions and billions of dollars". And these companies and the people who run them probably have a non-trivial impact on my life, if not directly than indirectly.
It's just fascinating.
It's just fascinating.
Citrix are pretty ubiquitous in the corporate space. Not as big a deal as they were ten or 15 years ago, but still a huge company that powers a lot of businesses.
Back in the corporate Windows desktop space of the early 2000s, the Citrix product was almost like magic. The problem it aimed to solve was reduction in cost and effort to deliver applications to users. Instead of managing a fleet of 'expensive' desktop computers, you install the desktop applications on a Citrix server and 'publish' them over a remote desktop protocol. The potential was huge! It was a real challenge to do this at the time. Citrix made it relatively easy to turn any old desktop PC or cheap terminal into a powerful workstation with the resources of a large server. The effect was extremely exciting at the time. A user was assigned a bunch of applications, so when they lpgged into the Citrix client they'd be able to run those applications no matter what device they were on. They could disconnect from running applications and reconnect from another device. There was the added bonus that it worked pretty well over slow network connections (some screen lag, but all other operations at the backend were lightning fast since the application ran in the date center on a beefy server). However, it was expensive. Either you had to have very deep pockets, or you need to dip into you desktop PC budget, fulfilling new hardware requests with existing refurbished PCs or new thin clients (at a lower cost). I never met an IT manager that was willing to do that. If it didn't work out, they'd be stuck with useless thin clients and the prospect of an expensive desktop refresh along with a backlog of applications to repackage and deploy via other means (Windows SMS Server, Group Policy etc). Also, very few people were doing remote work back then.
Citrix tried to pivot into other spaces like virtualization (Xen) but that market was flooded with alternatives, and most companies who used Xen were happy with the free version.
Citrix tried to pivot into other spaces like virtualization (Xen) but that market was flooded with alternatives, and most companies who used Xen were happy with the free version.
And then to reality (when I was forced to use it at a client):
Insanely unbaringly slow with tons of constant lag and IT issues.
I know, anecdote...
Insanely unbaringly slow with tons of constant lag and IT issues.
I know, anecdote...
That's something else that had a tendency to kill a Citrix deal. But implementation details are important. In my experience, managers who worked from home loved it because they could get the complete office desktop experience at home. There'd be some visual lag for sure, but visual latency aside, file and print operations were snappy and reliable. Trying to open an Excel spreadsheet over a dial-up network drive took ages. Print jobs were worse. Most installations I saw were POCs that got used as a remote work solution for managers. Any time they decided to deploy an app to all office staff the thing would predictably fall over, because it wasn't sized for that.
My anecdote is that it works much better than any X Windows setup that I have used, and since around 2011 it is either Citrix or RDP on most of our projects.
If we get projects with customers that will rather hand us low quality Dells with 4 / 8 GB with HDD, to access their infrastructure, I will always advocate for a Citrix or RDP based setup instead, due to how bad those laptops tend to be.
If we get projects with customers that will rather hand us low quality Dells with 4 / 8 GB with HDD, to access their infrastructure, I will always advocate for a Citrix or RDP based setup instead, due to how bad those laptops tend to be.
Can such a setup have a lossless presentation of the GUI? Personally I really dislike using a modern computer via a lossy video signal, just as a matter of principle. Same reason I'm not interested in cloud gaming even if the latency is great.
Yes HDMI quality isn't expected, but still much better then those lousy laptops anyway.
Citrix originally licensed the technology for the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to Microsoft.
RDP was a pared back version of Citrix, and the license terms left Citrix free to sell a with a more fully-featured virtualised desktop product running on top of Windows Server.
RDP was a pared back version of Citrix, and the license terms left Citrix free to sell a with a more fully-featured virtualised desktop product running on top of Windows Server.
Wikipedia says "Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a proprietary protocol developed by Microsoft" and that "[the] Terminal Services Edition of NT 4.0 relied on Citrix's MultiWin technology, previously provided as a part of Citrix WinFrame atop Windows NT 3.51, in order to support multiple users and login sessions simultaneously". Based on this it sounds to me like the protocol itself was the work of Microsoft and that Citrix built an extension to the server that multiplexed it. It also later remarks that "[the] T.128 application sharing technology was acquired by Microsoft from UK software developer Data Connection Limited", so it would seem that the protocol itself is a series of extensions developed on top of an open standard that they got via acquisition.
Years ago I worked in defense contracting. The US Department of Defense uses Citrix (which is easily Google-able; don't come at me about "OpSec") and my experience with it was always abysmal compared to RDP. I have a funny feeling that even with Microsoft in the mix it'd be cheaper and better for everybody involved to just pay M$ for the RDP CALs and ditch the dinosaur that is Citrix altogether.
Years ago I worked in defense contracting. The US Department of Defense uses Citrix (which is easily Google-able; don't come at me about "OpSec") and my experience with it was always abysmal compared to RDP. I have a funny feeling that even with Microsoft in the mix it'd be cheaper and better for everybody involved to just pay M$ for the RDP CALs and ditch the dinosaur that is Citrix altogether.
My understanding is that back in the early 2000s the Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP protocols were nearly identical. Common code and all that.
One of the reasons companies licensed Citrix is because Citrix kept investing in ICA and it was about 2-3 times as bandwidth efficient. In the era of 64 Kbps ISDN WAN links this was critical.
Microsoft did something around 2008 and now RDP seems better overall. It can handle 4K at 30 fps without difficulty.
Meanwhile Citrix did weird random things to ICA that made it markedly worse.
It says a lot that all of the Citrix engineers I’ve worked with (including myself) prefer to RDP into a Citrix server instead of using its native ICA protocol!
Other deliberate breakage was Citrix deprecating SSL support directly on the session hosts. They did this to force customers to buy their overpriced Netscaler / ADC appliances. These slow down connections and can’t handle many 4K streams.
Generally they seem to have become an acquisition-driven company instead of an engineering-led one.
One of the reasons companies licensed Citrix is because Citrix kept investing in ICA and it was about 2-3 times as bandwidth efficient. In the era of 64 Kbps ISDN WAN links this was critical.
Microsoft did something around 2008 and now RDP seems better overall. It can handle 4K at 30 fps without difficulty.
Meanwhile Citrix did weird random things to ICA that made it markedly worse.
It says a lot that all of the Citrix engineers I’ve worked with (including myself) prefer to RDP into a Citrix server instead of using its native ICA protocol!
Other deliberate breakage was Citrix deprecating SSL support directly on the session hosts. They did this to force customers to buy their overpriced Netscaler / ADC appliances. These slow down connections and can’t handle many 4K streams.
Generally they seem to have become an acquisition-driven company instead of an engineering-led one.
Don't forget that Citrix had a Terminal Server offering before Microsoft incorporated it into Terminal Server. That was the big offer in my mind, not the RDP client, but the ability to connect multiple end users to one Windows NT server back in NT 3.51/4's early days.
I worked at Citrix from 1996 thru 2000. In the early days, Citrix was licensing Windows NT (source code) from Microsoft and selling a modified version of it such that (a) one could remotely control/display Windows apps, and (b) multiple users could do this simultaneously. At a certain point (‘98?) Microsoft announced they would soon offer the same functionality as Citrix, and the stock got crushed. In the end, though, it seemed Microsoft decided the practical thing to do would be to roll their own version of “(a)” (dubbed “RDP”) and license “(b)” (back, as it were) from Citrix. At least I think it was something like that.
I have managed large Citrix farms and if you have the bandwith RDP blows it away. Lot less options and control but with decent bandwith and high settings RDP is pretty nice.
That being said I hear VMware Horizon blows away Citrix too
I will never touch Citrix again.
That being said I hear VMware Horizon blows away Citrix too
I will never touch Citrix again.
It took an act of God to get the Horizon client working last I used it (weirdness with client SSL libraries... on Windows no less) but it worked pretty well once I got it set up.
Citrix is typically used over WAN or internet and RDP over fatter pipes. Citrix gives a more complete desktop experience using less bandwidth. Not typical concerns where RDP is dominant.
Oh wow I had no idea about this. Always thought that RDP was something MS developed and Citrix was a more of an RDP alternative with better centralised management features, OEM integration, etc.
Spot on with Citrix not being as big a deal as they once were. 10 years ago any reasonable sized desktop app deployment went through Citrix, now it's migrating to web apps. I struggle to see the long term value proposition in Citrix but my experience is limited to finance and pharma.
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At work, I need to use Citrix to check my email on Lotus Notes!
you still use Lotus Notes? wtf ?
There's very good money to be made in consulting if you "know" Lotus Notes. Even a lot more if you know how to migrate the thing (presumably to MS Exchange).
IBM employee probably...
IBM still uses Lotus Notes??
Yes, because they could never migrate off of it to a more modern product :)))
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27692965
it is actually worse, they probably use a frankenstein mix of Notes, Exchange, Office365, and something else
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27692965
it is actually worse, they probably use a frankenstein mix of Notes, Exchange, Office365, and something else
Oh my god. Alright that's enough internet for today I think
Financial company.
IBM still exists?
I've heard of the name, I kind of just assumed they made orange juice. Tibco is that British supermarket? Kinda makes sense.
Oh well, on with my day.
Oh well, on with my day.
> Tibco is that British supermarket?
I'm not British, so it also took me a while to realize that Tibco wasn't Tesco.
I'm not British, so it also took me a while to realize that Tibco wasn't Tesco.
Tesco is a Tibco customer.
https://www.tibco.com/blog/2019/11/06/tesco-bank-and-postnl-...
https://www.tibco.com/blog/2019/11/06/tesco-bank-and-postnl-...
The world is a really big place.
For example, when Okta bought Auth0 last year, that was titanic for my employer (we're in their space). But it barely made a ripple to anyone outside of the auth space. People still confuse Auth0 with OAuth when I give talks!
I think about it in other ways too. Look around you. Wherever you are, unless you are in the wilderness, there are 1000s of companies that worked to bring the built environment to you. Whether that be a picture frame, an envelope, a laundry basket, whatever.
It's humbling.
For example, when Okta bought Auth0 last year, that was titanic for my employer (we're in their space). But it barely made a ripple to anyone outside of the auth space. People still confuse Auth0 with OAuth when I give talks!
I think about it in other ways too. Look around you. Wherever you are, unless you are in the wilderness, there are 1000s of companies that worked to bring the built environment to you. Whether that be a picture frame, an envelope, a laundry basket, whatever.
It's humbling.
I find the Auth0 acquisition to be more impressive. Many people (even non-tech) know about Citrix because of Windows. Almost no one outside of tech (and many people inside tech too) knows anything about auth0. Yet, we have a company that was acquired for 6.5 billions of dollars.
If you are into learning more about this, I found this article fascinating: https://strategyofsecurity.com/okta-auth0-q2-2021-results/
It also points to the Okta investor presentations and call transcripts, which are fascinating. The latest one has this tidbit: "It's like there's a customer identity cloud, and that's Auth0, and there's a workforce identity cloud, which is both for employees and for your extended workforce, partners and suppliers and things that are kind of workforce like, and those are the platforms in the product suites we go to market with."
https://investor.okta.com/static-files/b52f68c6-0979-4c49-9e...
It also points to the Okta investor presentations and call transcripts, which are fascinating. The latest one has this tidbit: "It's like there's a customer identity cloud, and that's Auth0, and there's a workforce identity cloud, which is both for employees and for your extended workforce, partners and suppliers and things that are kind of workforce like, and those are the platforms in the product suites we go to market with."
https://investor.okta.com/static-files/b52f68c6-0979-4c49-9e...
The combined market cap of the S&P 500 is 30.5 trillion. The companies everyone knows about probably account for about ~10T. The remaining 20T represents a long tail of unknown companies worth a few 10s of billions.
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> "[Company I've never heard of] and [Another company I've never heard of],
I'm going to guess you're under 30?
Amongst the many things Tibco sold was Rendezvous, which was extremely popular in the banks for running trading systems back in... the 90s and early 00s. Then of course, multi-core chips came along and sending messages to other processes on single cores over the network, versus, other processes in the same bit of silicon via memory instead.
And Citrix - another extremely popular bit of software for connecting remotely to Windows boxes (amongst other things). Again in the 90s and early 00s.
There seems to be so many of these zombie companies now. Embarcadero is another one that always springs to mind. Produces nothing new, just shambles around on existing revenue streams.
I'm going to guess you're under 30?
Amongst the many things Tibco sold was Rendezvous, which was extremely popular in the banks for running trading systems back in... the 90s and early 00s. Then of course, multi-core chips came along and sending messages to other processes on single cores over the network, versus, other processes in the same bit of silicon via memory instead.
And Citrix - another extremely popular bit of software for connecting remotely to Windows boxes (amongst other things). Again in the 90s and early 00s.
There seems to be so many of these zombie companies now. Embarcadero is another one that always springs to mind. Produces nothing new, just shambles around on existing revenue streams.
The successor to Rendezvous called FTL is optimized for low latency messaging over shared mem/rdma/infiniband etc and even inter-thread within a process. There is some neat distributed systems engineering in systems like FTL if your work depends on that kinda thing (trading, manufacturing, logistics, etc.) For the rest, there is always Pulsar/Kafka/WS/JMS.
https://docs.tibco.com/pub/ftl/4.3.0/doc/html/GUID-C2A32299-...
https://docs.tibco.com/pub/ftl/4.3.0/doc/html/GUID-C2A32299-...
My current, HUGE employer bases its whole remote/local workstation tech on Citrix products.
At a previous, also HUGE employer, we used Tibco Rendezvous for FX trade messaging and it was a great product, in that it was performant and never seemed to fail.
At a previous, also HUGE employer, we used Tibco Rendezvous for FX trade messaging and it was a great product, in that it was performant and never seemed to fail.
I worked with Tibco's message queue back in the 00's somewhere...but to be honest I though they had gone under.
Citrix should be more well known, but if you've never worked in a Windows environment then perhaps not.
Citrix should be more well known, but if you've never worked in a Windows environment then perhaps not.
Tibco has pulsar, kafka and jms for mainstream streaming & queueing use cases. And FTL for low latency messaging. Not exactly on TechCrunch, but there is a lot of it out there in enterprises.
Citrix also has a major load balancer/“ADC” business - formerly Netscaler. Had to look it up recently for a k8s ingress controller.
Citrix also has a major load balancer/“ADC” business - formerly Netscaler. Had to look it up recently for a k8s ingress controller.
JMS righ?
Citrix is alive and well in large organisations
Tibco is responsible for Jaspersoft.
Jaspersoft is both insanely powerful and will make you want to kill the authors and then yourself.
There isn’t really anything else that does what it does though and you can take that statement both ways.
I really hate Jaspersoft but unless you work in a certain kind of enterprise environment you can go an entire career without running into it.
Jaspersoft is both insanely powerful and will make you want to kill the authors and then yourself.
There isn’t really anything else that does what it does though and you can take that statement both ways.
I really hate Jaspersoft but unless you work in a certain kind of enterprise environment you can go an entire career without running into it.
Don't worry, it's super extensible! All you have to is write a java class with the right interface, modify a massive spring xml file, and inject your class at the one right place to make everything work!
Hope you didn't want documentation on the class interface though. I'm sure you can figure it out from context...
Hope you didn't want documentation on the class interface though. I'm sure you can figure it out from context...
Egads this sounds like Minecraft modding without forge or fabric.
I haven’t thought about JasperSoft since 2009. I didn’t know it was still a thing,
Was as of 2019 when I left that job and never had to touch that monstrosity again.
I find it fascinating you went through your life so far without knowing about citrix.
As a former Citrix user, I’m a little jealous.
This is the proper response haha. I'd pay $16.5B to never use it again.
Haha.. As much as I disliked it, if someone offered me that much money to use it, sure, I would do so with a grin.
The two worst things about going to work are Citrix and the coffee. WFH only fixes one of them.
Imagine how bad Citrix is as an end user of it. Now imagine having to be the one that sets all that up and maintains it. And has to deal with their support.
Citrix Cloud is also hilariously bad
Citrix Cloud is also hilariously bad
Coffee is one of those things for me where no matter how bad it is, it's still good.
If it's brown, liquid and caffeinated then I'm happy. Especially if I'm drinking it first thing in the morning.
Not that I don't enjoy good coffee. But my bar is pretty low.
If it's brown, liquid and caffeinated then I'm happy. Especially if I'm drinking it first thing in the morning.
Not that I don't enjoy good coffee. But my bar is pretty low.
Throw some crystal reports and a “coffee bag” (as in like the tea bag) for good measure and a dash of Sharepoint and DCOM. Now we are talking. DAO recordsets too (no not DAO as in Ethereum!)
I was going to comment when the Citrix Workspace updater popped up even though I explicitly asked not to be notified about updates, a setting that is hidden by the worst settings menu I've ever seen on a Mac app (there seem to be ways to stop the app to run in the background, but why does it even need to? It's not like 2 seconds of startup time will make any difference with the latency I experience working with the product)
Anyhow, I was so happy Sharepoint was dropped for OneDrive, a slightly less bad product (and same with Teams/Skype)
Anyhow, I was so happy Sharepoint was dropped for OneDrive, a slightly less bad product (and same with Teams/Skype)
Crystal Reports! <shudder> that name hasn’t been mentioned in my house (or thought about) in nearly 2 decades.
Ever want to use crystal reports to generate scannable paper correspondence for tens of thousands of businesses in a single job? The state of Wisconsin sure did!
Ever want to use crystal reports to generate scannable paper correspondence for tens of thousands of businesses in a single job? The state of Wisconsin sure did!
DCOM. The Guantanamo Bay of distributed computing.
Still not as bad as QuickTime.
Still not as bad as QuickTime.
If you didn't have a old-style corporate job, how would you encounter Citrix?
Because it is a very well known software company. I have never used Citrix, but to me its as a name the same way as VMWare, SAP, EMC, Salesforce and Intuit is.
Again, all those are old-style enterprise software. If you didn't work in a legacy corporate environment, you'd never encounter them.
I think anyone who has ever had a sales or support job has to deal with Salesforce in one form or the other.
Umm. If you file taxes with a computer, you’re using Intuit.
If you have a datacenter, it has a good shot of running some VMware.
If you run logistics at almost any medium sized or bigger company, you’re using SAP or Oracle.
If you have a group of employees that sell things, Salesforce is common.
This is the software that literally runs the world. If you’re not familiar with it, then you’re ignorant about how the world works. Nothing wrong with that of course, but I don’t understand the pride in it. Especially on HN, where Hackers tend to be curious.
If you have a datacenter, it has a good shot of running some VMware.
If you run logistics at almost any medium sized or bigger company, you’re using SAP or Oracle.
If you have a group of employees that sell things, Salesforce is common.
This is the software that literally runs the world. If you’re not familiar with it, then you’re ignorant about how the world works. Nothing wrong with that of course, but I don’t understand the pride in it. Especially on HN, where Hackers tend to be curious.
Intuit has no relevance if you don’t live in the US
Turbotax sure (includes Canada), but Quickbooks is used globally.
There are many countries (the UK I can say with certainty, but I believe also the EU), where no 3rd party software is needed to complete a tax return for a typical person.
Either it's completely automatic (like most PAYE employees in the UK), or the tax system is simplified to point where it's a simple form to complete.
Either it's completely automatic (like most PAYE employees in the UK), or the tax system is simplified to point where it's a simple form to complete.
I heard of TIBCO in two ways, the first time was from my housemates friend who was visiting. We were still poor college students and this friend was making fat stacks as a consultant for TIBCO. Apparently their business model is selling their system for cheap, throwing in as much support and help as they can integrating it deep in their clients business processes. And once that's succesful they raise the prices each year to exorbitant amounts.
The other way I learned at a meetup that was hosted by the ING (a large international bank). An architect was trying to recruit me to come work at ING and explained their fancy architecture to me. Right at the heart of it was a TIBCO message passing layer. It made me cringe.
I don't know why they couldn't have just picked rabbitmq or something, probably similar reasons to why some companies pick oracle over postgres. I don't think it's worth it, but I'm not an enterprise architect.
The other way I learned at a meetup that was hosted by the ING (a large international bank). An architect was trying to recruit me to come work at ING and explained their fancy architecture to me. Right at the heart of it was a TIBCO message passing layer. It made me cringe.
I don't know why they couldn't have just picked rabbitmq or something, probably similar reasons to why some companies pick oracle over postgres. I don't think it's worth it, but I'm not an enterprise architect.
If you're only in startups, that would make sense but citrix is big in the corporate world. I worked for a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway for a few years out of college and our who setup depended on citrix. Keeping it vague, we allowed people to bid for allocations of space on transportation infrastructure. When a huge company wanted to spend millions to buy some space, they'd download our client which was actually just a citrix portal that tunneled to desktop software running on our servers. My company was a billion dollar company so you may have never heard of them, but citrix was absolutely crucial to our cash flow.
Wow! I am surprised - I thought Xen hypervisor was a household name at least within the software industry. Looks like not! Haha.
Anyone who has worked in a large company/bank knows who they are.
Worked at a F500 company.
Never heard of those.
Never heard of those.
You would have definitely used Citrix products, but unless you were in IT you might not have known they were Citrix.
I’ve heard of shops that had all developers use Citrix. But mostly I’ve seen it the context of CSR types being forced to use it so they wouldn’t have access to a computer.
Doesn't exactly qualify you for knowing about IT software.
You’ve never heard of Citrix? How old are you?
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be thankful, both of them produce awful, awful software
the citrix garbage I have to use to log into work is like Windows 95, it regularly corrupts its own install (on a machine only used for that)
and of course the uninstaller doesn't clean up everything, so you have to download a separate program to clean that up
and the less said about tibco rendezvous the better
the citrix garbage I have to use to log into work is like Windows 95, it regularly corrupts its own install (on a machine only used for that)
and of course the uninstaller doesn't clean up everything, so you have to download a separate program to clean that up
and the less said about tibco rendezvous the better
Citrix Workspace? The client? Very stable for me and Citrix VDI is pretty amazing on low bandwidth.
I find it fascinating that you haven't heard of Tibco and Citrix.
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Back in the 90s or early 2000s Citrix had amazing technology.
The world is vast, and the tech world is no different.
Feels like the beginning of the end for Citrix.
I've deployed their various products since 1999, back in the NT4 Terminal Server edition. I have fond memories of running MS Word on UNIX terminals at university by connecting to Citrix running on NT4 on my home PC. Other students would walk past rows of screens in the computer lab all showing drab black and white fixed-width text editors except for one in the middle with a colourful WYSIWYG Windows application overlaid on top of the standard UNIX applications.
I would always respond to the queries about how this was working with: "Magic."
Now? Three large customers are winding their Citrix deployments down. Feels like working with Novell products in the early 2000s.
I've deployed their various products since 1999, back in the NT4 Terminal Server edition. I have fond memories of running MS Word on UNIX terminals at university by connecting to Citrix running on NT4 on my home PC. Other students would walk past rows of screens in the computer lab all showing drab black and white fixed-width text editors except for one in the middle with a colourful WYSIWYG Windows application overlaid on top of the standard UNIX applications.
I would always respond to the queries about how this was working with: "Magic."
Now? Three large customers are winding their Citrix deployments down. Feels like working with Novell products in the early 2000s.
It is not going to be good. The combined company had to pay back $16.5B. Just the interest will be $1B per year.
I remember my dad installing Citrix on our home PC with 28.8 kbps modem in the mid-90s so he could occasionally "telecommute", as working remotely was called back then. It really did seem like magic that he could run all of the Windows apps on his work PC from home.
When I asked people who had already successfully made something work and they gave me replies such as "magic" it really used to frustrate me in the pre-internet days.
Especially in cases like this where they had their better "colourful WYSIWYG Windows application" while the rest of us are stuck on our "drab black and white fixed-width text editors"
Especially in cases like this where they had their better "colourful WYSIWYG Windows application" while the rest of us are stuck on our "drab black and white fixed-width text editors"
It's funny because I had an opposite kind of experience when I was in school in 2001, all the CS students needed to be in the labs to get the full unix experience but my friend and I figured out how to do xwindow forwarding to our windows PCs in the dorm and could work just like we were in the lab.
Citrix ICA was very bandwidth efficient, it would run acceptably over a dialup modem link. Xwindows, not so much.
Reminds me exactly of the old Netware days and their winddown.
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I wonder if this will affect the open core XenServer project.
backstory: Citrix has been releasing a community version of their xenserver product (based on the open source Xen project) but over the last few years they have been removing features from the open core version, going so far as to remove Xen from the name in late 2019
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15974615
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19479483
backstory: Citrix has been releasing a community version of their xenserver product (based on the open source Xen project) but over the last few years they have been removing features from the open core version, going so far as to remove Xen from the name in late 2019
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15974615
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19479483
Removing Xen from the name had nothing directly to do with changing the model for Xen Server; all Citrix products were re-branded at the same time.
You never know what corporations will do with products they're supporting, whether they're open-source or not. (Ask VMWare customers how they're feeling now, for instance.) But with open-source, if there's a large enough user base, someone can step in and take over the software to fill the gap -- and in fact, that's exactly what's happened with XenServer: the XCP-ng forked the open-source part of XenServer, and now Vates (the company behind XCP-ng) is actively collaborating with Citrix on future development. Removing features from "free XenServer" wouldn't really have that big of an impact on customers, since they'd almost certainly end up in XCP-ng anyway.
You never know what corporations will do with products they're supporting, whether they're open-source or not. (Ask VMWare customers how they're feeling now, for instance.) But with open-source, if there's a large enough user base, someone can step in and take over the software to fill the gap -- and in fact, that's exactly what's happened with XenServer: the XCP-ng forked the open-source part of XenServer, and now Vates (the company behind XCP-ng) is actively collaborating with Citrix on future development. Removing features from "free XenServer" wouldn't really have that big of an impact on customers, since they'd almost certainly end up in XCP-ng anyway.
Yes, I switched to XCP-ng in early 2017 and haven't looked back. While I am not super in love with Vates (and their incessant pushing of their saas products I have 0% chance of using) it is a great example of the GPL at work protecting users freedoms.
At a previous job I also made that switch. We already were running Xen Orchestra, so the offering of XCP-ng was a blessing. Later on we replaced XenApp with a default Microsoft set-up as that worked just as well.
Took a trip down to memory lane and found this recent post which is very recognizable: "How Citrix dropped the ball on Xen ... according to Citrix" https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/30/citrix_xen/
Took a trip down to memory lane and found this recent post which is very recognizable: "How Citrix dropped the ball on Xen ... according to Citrix" https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/30/citrix_xen/
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This article explains some of the background and how the banks lost money on the deal:
https://prospect.org/power/griftrix-citrix-systems-debt-deal...
https://prospect.org/power/griftrix-citrix-systems-debt-deal...
Thanks, I just threw up in my mouth. I see where the French Revolutionaries were coming from.
though french revolutionists were merchants, traders, relatively well-off folks, you could even say private equity dudes of that era :)
Citrix is far less of a company than it was not long ago. It is responsible in no small part for what we know today as remote desktop and VDI, it had all the Goto products, including GoToMeeting, and of course Xen. Many of these products hit the market before people knew what they were for… “why would I want virtual desktops, why would I want virtual meetings…” Some of it was awkward to use, but arguably only because it was such an early entrant. But lately, it has been unraveling, shedding the Goto line and all the related voice and video and collaboration products to LogMeIn… Microsoft now offers most of what Citrix once had exclusive. And now, … well, here we are. No love lost with me, really, but it does seem like a landmark in enterprise computing history.
Can someone explain what either of these two companies are actually selling, beyond the cryptic marketing messaging on their respective websites?
Someone in this thread indicated that Citrix was the original developer of Microsoft Remote Desktop, and later licensed it to Microsoft. All Citrix's website seems to offer is "One digital workspace platform to empower secure hybrid work".
And what's the deal with Tibco?
Someone in this thread indicated that Citrix was the original developer of Microsoft Remote Desktop, and later licensed it to Microsoft. All Citrix's website seems to offer is "One digital workspace platform to empower secure hybrid work".
And what's the deal with Tibco?
Tibco sells integration software. Say you want to get your SAP systems to communicate with your databases, while having some logic to modify the data being passed through, then you can use TIBCO business works to connect to both and implement the logic
For Citrix, it was XenServer, XenClient, and XenDesktop when I was there? Also Go2Meeting, and a few other other stuff like that.
Myself I "grew up" in an X11 and Sun "the network is the computer" world. Have not used Citrix more than an hour, but my interpretation was that Citrix made a (huge) business out of Microsoft completely missing the network in the 90s. Both LAN and Internet. So yeah, they allow you to access a Windows computer over the net. Windows still exists so the business continues.
For Tibco I have no equivalent story to tell.
Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIBCO_Software gives an idea.
For Tibco I have no equivalent story to tell.
Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIBCO_Software gives an idea.
Tibco does/did middleware. When I used it 20 odd years ago, it provided a robust messaging system for apps across the enterprise. We used it to communicate between a half dozen systems where I worked as well as the middleware for the n-tier app I worked on, and it was pretty easy to use.
Citrix is like VNC or Remote Desktop or NoMachine.
Tibco is like Apache ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ or IBM WebSphere MQ.
Tibco is like Apache ActiveMQ or RabbitMQ or IBM WebSphere MQ.
We used Citrix at an old corporate job. It was an all-in-one corporate networking solution. We had 2fA keys and logins and citrix was the entire IP(Intellectual Property)-protection networking + vpn layer.
Any old school Amazon-ers here cringing when they hear the name "Tibco"?
Tibco rvd and UDP multicast crushing switch buffers and falling back to UDP unicast to crush them even harder during the ramp up to Christmas.
Former employee in a certain Mediterranean ofc here.
This was the most toxic env I've put myself through. Zero regrets on leaving apart from not going earlier. Some good people there. Some technically apt as well. But the amount of arses and backstabing minions is staggering. I've never before or after felt so bullied by my own coworkers. What they lacked in skills the made up in politics and gaslighting. And it was much like that in all levels. Busy working, busy empty talking, bullshiting and politics oh so much politics that it would make a notmal person throw up.
Anyway i gtfo with clear PTSD and I should probably seek councelling as I'm afraid it shows at my current job.
PS: i've been through a few companies in rough waters. It's always the same story. Nobody loves the company. And if you dare do something about it you are treated as enemy. All the entrenched actors treat it like a cow to be milked till it dies. And when it finally dies they act so surprised and sad...untill they get the severance package.
This was the most toxic env I've put myself through. Zero regrets on leaving apart from not going earlier. Some good people there. Some technically apt as well. But the amount of arses and backstabing minions is staggering. I've never before or after felt so bullied by my own coworkers. What they lacked in skills the made up in politics and gaslighting. And it was much like that in all levels. Busy working, busy empty talking, bullshiting and politics oh so much politics that it would make a notmal person throw up.
Anyway i gtfo with clear PTSD and I should probably seek councelling as I'm afraid it shows at my current job.
PS: i've been through a few companies in rough waters. It's always the same story. Nobody loves the company. And if you dare do something about it you are treated as enemy. All the entrenched actors treat it like a cow to be milked till it dies. And when it finally dies they act so surprised and sad...untill they get the severance package.
Anyone who has experience working with Tibco’s service bus? After all their name is short for “the information bus company”. I have seen their product deployed in many banks and exchanges but never heard anything good or bad about it from a developer standpoint.
What does TIBCO do? Well, I know their product WebFocus, curious if anyone else here uses it. It's basically an online platform for making charts, dashboards, scheduling data extracts for clients, etc. I'm in the healthcare domain, we use WebFocus to power a bunch of clinicians' products.
I will say, I think the product's technical underpinning is not ideal. Instead of just using SQL, they have a proprietary language built in which has similarities to SQL but is much less easy to read and use. For instance a lot is stored in Metadata tables that are many clicks away from the report they're referencing. Also, there are a few cryptic keywords and things specific to WebFocus, which is obviously not that widely used and doesn't have many S.O. posts about it. So you're left staring at some various mysterious keywords or specific-syntax and thinking, do I learn anything more about this than what I need to, since this product is probably not going to last and will end up in the dust-bin like many other proprietary products. And it's just not a very employable skill like SQL.
Overall, I don't like WebFocus, I think Tableau must be a couple notches better. But hey, my org is under-staffed and we don't have the manpower to change systems, so we're stuck with this.
I will say, I think the product's technical underpinning is not ideal. Instead of just using SQL, they have a proprietary language built in which has similarities to SQL but is much less easy to read and use. For instance a lot is stored in Metadata tables that are many clicks away from the report they're referencing. Also, there are a few cryptic keywords and things specific to WebFocus, which is obviously not that widely used and doesn't have many S.O. posts about it. So you're left staring at some various mysterious keywords or specific-syntax and thinking, do I learn anything more about this than what I need to, since this product is probably not going to last and will end up in the dust-bin like many other proprietary products. And it's just not a very employable skill like SQL.
Overall, I don't like WebFocus, I think Tableau must be a couple notches better. But hey, my org is under-staffed and we don't have the manpower to change systems, so we're stuck with this.
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The next decade is going to be heaven for M&A. Also, the yields on the bonds Citrix issued were eye-popping.
Afaik the bonds are issued by the PE firms executing the deal, and it's taken many months to close. The debt has sat on bank books for a significant portion of time, so the yields are reflective of the price needed to unload them in the current market vs a market that was more conducive to the offering when the deal was initially agreed upon
PE firms don’t issue debt for leveraged buyouts. The debt is issued by the target company, ie. Citrix. Citrix is responsible for servicing the debt, not the PE firm.
Part of the way M&A activity destroys companies.
Not that anyone would miss Citrix except for their open source contributions, even if they are pared down.
Not that anyone would miss Citrix except for their open source contributions, even if they are pared down.
Isn't this what ultimately took Toys R' Us down? The company actually had huge revenues, but after paying all it debtors could no longer actually make money.
The WSJ reported on it:
https://archive.ph/LVoGa
https://archive.ph/LVoGa
Buyouts don't need to be leveraged.
Can you elaborate on why conditions will be good for M&A?
I’m also interested to hear why. Maybe if you are consolidating unfundable companies by force?
Maybe they can fix the crapshoot that is Tibco-Rendevous (RV)
Is it really that bad?
When i worked it it i quite liked it
When i worked it it i quite liked it
Or Tibco Smartsockets
> AUSTIN, Texas, & MENLO PARK, Calif. – September 30, 2022 – Vista Equity Partners (“Vista”), a leading global investment firm focused exclusively on enterprise software, data and technology-enabled businesses, and Evergreen Coast Capital Corp. (“Evergreen”), an affiliate of Elliott Investment Management L.P. (together with its affiliates, collectively, “Elliott”), today announced the successful completion of their previously announced transaction to acquire Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) (“Citrix”) and combine it with TIBCO Software (“TIBCO”).
What role is Vista playing here? It's not clear why that company is necessary or even involved.
It sounds like Vista is the owner of both entities and plans to sell the combined unit at some point.
What role is Vista playing here? It's not clear why that company is necessary or even involved.
It sounds like Vista is the owner of both entities and plans to sell the combined unit at some point.
Tibco General Interface - Enterprise Edition!
An early Ajax framework that sunk without a trace? Version 3.8 introduced Chrome 2.0 support, with a headline feature being support for Dojo framework components. The last version 3.9.2 added support for IE11. Memory lane for anyone evaluating primitive Ajax frameworks. https://docs.tibco.com/pub/general_interface_enterprise_edit...
An early Ajax framework that sunk without a trace? Version 3.8 introduced Chrome 2.0 support, with a headline feature being support for Dojo framework components. The last version 3.9.2 added support for IE11. Memory lane for anyone evaluating primitive Ajax frameworks. https://docs.tibco.com/pub/general_interface_enterprise_edit...
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As the submission title is confusing (who acquired whom?):
Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Announce the Completion of the Transaction to Acquire Citrix Systems and Combine it with TIBCO Software.
Vista Equity Partners and Evergreen Coast Capital Announce the Completion of the Transaction to Acquire Citrix Systems and Combine it with TIBCO Software.
I knew of Tibco from an "Ajax IDE" they built gazilian years ago, from the time when there was a site called Ajaxian. Lol.
PE companies are putting lipstick on a pig that is Cloud Software Group, to unload this mammoth company on IPO bagholders in one-two years.
CEO just needs to aggressively outsource all software development (their leadership page https://www.cloud.com/leadership.html gives some hints) to cut costs and boost bottom-line for two years, so that numbers look nicer in IPO prospect one-two years from now.
CEO just needs to aggressively outsource all software development (their leadership page https://www.cloud.com/leadership.html gives some hints) to cut costs and boost bottom-line for two years, so that numbers look nicer in IPO prospect one-two years from now.
I've used Tibco jaspersoft I Ireport for dynamical pdf generation
Schwab still uses citrix for their streetsmart edge trading app
Aren't Tibco EAI? Why are they buying Citrix?
TIBCO is not buying Citrix. Vista and Elliot bought Citrix and merged it with TIBCO which was owned by Vista.
Ah okay thanks for the clarification. Makes more sense.
Two ancient pieces of software, together at last.
Vista's "solution"? Vista managed to push a portion of the equity to Evergreen (Elliott Management's PE arm), and are building a Broadcom or CA Technologies style mammoth of legacy software by calcifying their technology in F500 and low-technology end markets. Their next merger to further feed the beast is Citrix.
Today's problem? The merger requires billions in debt to pay Citrix's public shareholders, which is put on the merged company's new balance sheet. The market was great when the deal was signed almost a year ago and when the large banks signed up to syndicate (sell to smaller investors) the entire debt balance. Unfortunately, as the debt syndication process was underway, the market turned and the typical investors in these huge tranches of LBO debt were no longer interested. That means the big banks were left to fill the balance of what they couldn't syndicate (contractual requirement) by taking on that bad paper themselves. It's bad paper because the banks commit to the LBO investors they'll get the investors to sign up at a 4% interest rate when any investor would probably ask for 7.5-9% now. Believe 8-10 banks are stuck holding something like $2-3 billion.
The Resolution. Deal got done and the LBO investors forced the banks to eat the losses. Now this black hole of a company will continue to grow until it gets foisted on a company like Broadcom or IBM that would be happy to churn out billions in cash from it. PE firms win. Merged company wins. Banks lose. Employees will lose as massive waves of layoffs are done to "eliminate redundancies" because they won't need two complete HR, finance, IT, legal, etc. teams. And billions in cash flow will be generated as a result.