Citrix primed for 4G take-off with Bytemobile purchase

Citrix claims its acquisition of mobile network optimisation vendor Bytemobile means it will be ready to win share off its rivals when the demand for 4G services takes off.

The virtualisation giant announced yesterday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Bytemobile for an undisclosed sum.

Citrix said the deal would allow it to tap into the foothold Bytemobile has in the mobile network operators market, where its products are used by 130 companies across 60 countries.

The market for the combined proposition will be Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere who are already investing in network optimisation solutions.

The acquisition is expected to close during July or August of 2012, when Bytemobile will become part of the service provider platforms team within the Citrix Cloud Networking Product Group.

Speaking to IT Pro, Damian Saunders, director of the Citrix Cloud Platforms Networking Group, said the deal should allow the two firms to displace several other vendors who provide infrastructure services to mobile network operators.

"The market for the combined proposition will be Vodafone, O2 and Everything Everywhere who are already investing in a variety of network optimisation solutions from a variety of vendors, but Bytemobile provides a single product that can cover that," claimed Saunders.

Using Bytemobile's single product instead of multiple offerings made by several vendors should lower the total cost of ownership for network operators, he added.

"There is not another vendor in the market that can offer what [Citrix and Bytemobile] can, and there are vendors out there that we can displace."