5 Impacts of the Citrix/Arrow Electronics Agreement

Citrix’ recent announcement of a strategic distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics is an outcome of the tremendous change that Citrix® has undergone in the past few years. Here’s a brief recap of those changes and why some Citrix’ CSP partners should consider new partnership opportunities.  

Arrow Electronics and Citrix Relationship

Arrow became an official Citrix distributer in May 2017. To maximize its success with Citrix’ 2018 revamped product line, Arrow overhauled its partner program, including sales, technical support, and marketing—and won a 2018 global partnership award from Citrix for operational efficiency and dynamic growth. And Arrow didn’t stop there. In 2021, the company launched a fully managed service for application delivery and back-up that included Citrix as a core technology. Given Arrow’s global operations, business success ($33B in sales in 2023), proven channel efficiency, and Citrix technology expertise, it made sense to Citrix to entrust the smaller CSP partners to Arrow.

So, in August 2024, Citrix announced a strategic distribution agreement with Arrow Electronics. Included in the agreement is Arrow’s assumption on October 1^st of responsibility  for sales, marketing and technical support for all service provider channel partners consuming fewer than 2,000 Citrix licenses across North America and Europe.

In September 2024, Citrix announced changes to the CSP applicable to program members with over 2,000 licenses. Like larger partners, CSP partners utilizing less than 2,000 licenses annually will need to move their customers to the Citrix Universal for CSP platform, but will probably be able to continue utilizing Citrix technology using a monthly commitment model for at least the near future.

5 Impacts of the Citrix/Arrow Electronics Agreement on Citrix CSP Partners

Citrix’ changes to its product line shifted Citrix from a product-based company to a cloud services-based company focused on enterprise-class companies; instead of tracking revenue based on license sales, Citrix now utilizes a subscription model. Both shifts have benefited Citrix, simplifying their offerings and ensuring a more predictable and ongoing revenue stream.

But has this shift benefited Citrix smaller CSP partners—the MSPs and ISVs with less than 2,000 Citrix licenses used to host and manage their application delivery? Will those CSP partners be better off with Arrow Electronics managing them? Let’s take a look at the impact on those partners.

1. Loss of direct Citrix relationships.

The bulk of CSP partners affected by the move to Arrow Electronics have invested years—and for some, decades—in building relationships with Citrix personnel that made it easier and faster to get accurate information quickly from an experienced Citrix partner team. With the move to Arrow, these CSP partners will have to start over and rebuild all those long-term relationships, which will take extra time and effort to achieve, when time and effort is a very precious resource.

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2. Loss of direct access to Citrix resources.

As noted above, the CSP partners that have been moved to Arrow Electronics spent years establishing relationships with the Citrix team managing the CSP program. The partners also spent years getting to know the specific Citrix resources available to them to help them manage their Citrix partnership, place orders, track sales and maintenance numbers, get technical know-how, request support, etc. Now these CSP partners will have to start over that process, too.

3. Forced adoption of a new application delivery platform.

In addition to being moved to Arrow Electronics for partnership management, and re-learning all those ropes, CSP partners will have to adapt to a new platform for application delivery, the Citrix Universal for CSP platform. They’ll have to put together an adoption plan and figure out how to smoothly transition their customers from their current infrastructure to the new platform. And they’ll have to do it with a new, unfamiliar partner management team and a new, unfamiliar technical support team that has little to no experience with the Citrix Universal for CSP platform.

4. New CSP program rules and regulations to navigate.

It’s a pretty fair and accurate assumption that these CSP partners will have to deal with new program rules, requirements, and regulations while they’re dealing with new management and technical support teams and a new application delivery platform—a possibly overwhelming prospect when they are still responsible for the day-to-day activities necessary to deliver applications to their customers.

5. Uncertainty regarding future revenue commitment model.

These CSP partners were moved to Arrow Electronics due to the fact that their monthly consumption business model made them unable to comply with Citrix’ new annual revenue commitment model. But, with Citrix’ zeal for a predictable revenue stream, and Arrow’s reputation for operational efficiency, how long will these CSP partners be exempt from that norm? Is a change to an annual revenue commitment on the near horizon? Smaller CSP partners will just have to stay tuned.

Citrix CSP partners with fewer than 2,000 licenses—there is another way.

Consider GO-Global® as a technology and partner for your application delivery infrastructure.

Here at GO-Global, we’ve focused for over 20 years on partnering with Windows ISVs and MSPs to build low-cost, high quality, enterprise-class solutions that enable them to deliver applications—and a great user experience—to customers located anywhere. 

GO-Global is not a platform, with all components pre-selected for you. GO-Global is a comprehensive application publishing solution that includes capabilities like load balancing that you can choose to use—or not—because GO-Global will also work with the cloud resources—for example, load balancing—that you already have in place.

GO-Global’s concurrent user pricing model aligns with standard SaaS pricing models, saving you money over named user pricing models, so you can offer your customers an industry-standard subscription model and maintain your profitability.

Despite its low price, GO-Global delivers enterprise-level scalability and easy management of user sessions via GO-Global’s Admin Console to further ensure a great user and administrative experience.

GO-Global’s partner program is simple and straightforward, with an easy-to-navigate partner portal containing extensive technical and marketing materials available to every partner. And, no, we don’t require an annual revenue commitment from our partners—and we do offer partner discounts.

Find out more about GO-Global’s partner program.

Download the GO-Global free 30-day trial.

Apply to become a GO-Global partner.

Schedule a call to discuss GO-Global’s partner program

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