Citrix Buys Bytemobile Ahead of Mobile Traffic Explosion

Citrix on Monday announced plans to acquire Bytemobile, a privately held data and video optimization solutions provider for mobile network operators. The acquisition automatically gives Citrix a foothold in the core infrastructure of more than 130 mobile operators in 60 countries around the world. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Citrix is betting the acquisition will help it make strides in a cloud era where Mobile operators are experiencing explosive growth in network traffic by offering a high-quality mobile subscriber experience and helping operators manage mobile network traffic growth efficiently. The companies had previously formed a strategic partnership.

"The cloud and mobile revolutions are rapidly converging, and mobile operators are at the heart of this convergence," said Klaus Oestermann, group vice president and general manager of cloud networking at Citrix.

Whether or not the Bytemobile acquisition will put Citrix in a "unique position" to lead the global mobile data and video infrastructure market charge into the LTE era, as Oestermann claimed, remains to be seen. But the acquisition does give Citrix more options.

Bytemobile's Value Proposition

Specifically, the Bytemobile acquisition expands Citrix's market reach into the rapidly growing mobile telecommunications space. Bytemobile has strong technology, award-winning products, a solid customer base, and 12 years of customer relationships and deployment experience in mobile telecommunications. Altogether, Bytemobile customers today serve more than 2 billion subscribers and process more than 20 petabytes of data traffic through customer networks daily.

"The integration of Bytemobile will enable us to extend our value proposition to the edge of the network, bringing content closer to the end user," Oestermann said.

He offered a laundry list of promised benefits to network operators and their subscribers, including faster, more efficient, more reliable, and more manageable networks; a better user experience; and scalability to process data traffic at lower cost.

Citrix plans to build on Bytemobile...