back to article Citrix suddenly changes CEO: Tatarinov out, COO David Henshall in

Citrix has announced a bolt-from-the-blue change of CEO. The company says its board and immediate-past-CEO Kirill Tatarinov reached a “mutual separation decision” that will see him depart the company. David J. Henshall, previously the company's chief financial officer and chief operations officer, now glories in the titles of …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They are not going to innovate anything with their present hiring

    In order to innovate something in an old company you have to bring some new brains in. New viewpoints. Something... New...

    If you are going to extreme lengths to demonstrate that you are superior and anyone new is inferior at the first "sieve" of interviews you are not going to get those brains. Ever.

    I have observed this more than once (just to make sure that it is not a one-off, but a company culture) and from there on any of their job ads are filed immediately in the rounded folder. Under my (virtual) desk.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Other way round

    "The Register wonders if the former CEO didn't think investors would be best-served by Citrix trying to innovate its way to a more pleasing balance sheet, but the board felt that was the best approach."

    More likely the other way round - Tatarinov *did* want to innovate to a pleasing balance sheet, but the board (aka Elliott Management who have been driving everything since pulling the coup to remove MarkT in 2015) want more and quicker returns now. "drive operating margin", "increase capital return" etc. You don't put the finance guy in charge to do more innovation, you put the finance guy in charge to sell the company (either in whole or in parts) and chop the bits you don't want any more. See also Gabe Knuth on the subject... http://www.brianmadden.com/opinion/Kirill-Tatarinov-out-as-Citrix-CEO-CFO-David-Henshall-takes-over-as-CEO-Heres-our-full-analysis

    An ex-Citrite.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CEO assessment

    "On his watch the company and pocketed shed its GoTo product lines and pocketed a cool US$2bn, improved profitability and forged alliances that saw Cisco and Microsoft send customers its way in preference to their own wares."

    Let's assess each of these points where Tatarinov supposedly deserves credit:

    1. The GoTo spinoff was well under way before Tatarinov took the reins at Citrix, and he had nothing to do with it operationally or strategically during his tenure. Zero credit here.

    2. "Improved profitability" - this is true, but how hard is firing a lot of people?

    3. As for "forging alliances with Microsoft" - there's no real accomplishment here, and in fact the moves with Redmond have damaged Citrix's position in key IT markets. The "partnership" with Microsoft on XenMobile has confused everyone, and resulted in Citrix losing a leadership position in Enterprise Mobility market (see recent Gartner Magic Quadrant). If I were an Enterprise IT shop, I would think twice about a strategic investment in Citrix's software because you never know when they'll cede their position to Microsoft. Citrix deferred to Microsoft with application streaming, they did it with server virtualization, they did it with enterprise mobility, they did it with online meetings (GoTo spin)...next one to cede could be enterprise file sharing.

    I agree with the ex-Citrite's point of view, that Tatarinov wanted to invest in innovation but the board put the shackles on him. So he decided to quit as he was being pushed out the door.

    Even after the successful GoTo spin off, Citrix is still worth more in a sum-of-the-parts calculation than as a whole. Sell Netscaler to Cisco, Xenserver to Amazon, Xendesktop, Xenapp, and Cloudportal to Microsoft, and Sharefile/Podio/Rightsignature to Logmein.

    -Another ex-Citrite

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