Credit: Citrix
Citrix hopes to accelerate its business model transition to the cloud and strategy to become a complete software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based work platform operator after buying SaaS collaborative work management provider Wrike for US$2.25 billion.
Headquartered in California and employing more than 1,000 people, Wrike provides roughly 18,000 customers globally with solutions designed to empower teams and distributed workers to plan, manage and efficiently complete work at scale.
The all-cash deal will see Citrix bring together its own digital work platform and Wrike’s work management solution, which is designed to streamline collaboration and work execution, providing employees with additional tools to work efficiently and securely from any location with an internet connection.
Beyond helping Citrix accelerate its business model transition to a "complete" SaaS-based work platform provider, it is anticipated that the combined company will present users with complementary solutions, unlocking new revenue opportunities.
Once integrated, Wrike will gain access to Citrix’s ecosystem of partners, creating new opportunities within the ecosystem to drive "additional value" for customers.
Together, Citrix and Wrike expect to serve over 400,000 customers across 140 countries.
"As part of the Citrix family, we will be able to scale our product and accelerate our roadmap to deliver capabilities that will help our customers get more from their Wrike investment," Wrike CEO and founder Andrew Filev said in a blog post. "We have always listened to our customers and have built our product based on their feedback -- now we will be able to do more of that, faster.
"This partnership could not happen at a better time, given the market shifts in 2020, the much-anticipated transition to the 'next normal', and the exponential growth in the demand for work management solutions," he added.
Filev's sentiment regarding the timing of the acquisition was echoed by Citrix president and CEO David Henshall, who noted that the nature of work is changing at pace and that those changes are likely to stick.
“Work today is happening everywhere -- at home, in the office and on the road," Henshall said. "We believe that in the future, success will go to those companies that can support flexible and hybrid work models and provide a consistent, secure and efficient experience that removes the complexity and noise from work so employees can focus and perform at their best, wherever they happen to be.
“Together, Citrix and Wrike will deliver the solutions needed to power a cloud-delivered digital workspace experience that enables teams to securely access the resources and tools they need to collaborate and get work done in the most efficient and effective way possible across any channel, device or location."
