Citrix acquires cloud storage specialist ShareFile

Citrix has acquired ShareFile, a move which the company hopes will bolster its cloud storage and collaboration offerings for business customers.

The company said it had completed the acquisition process and would be integrating the company into a new operation known as the data-sharing product group. ShareFile chief executive Jesse Lipson will take over as vice president and general manager of the group. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Citrix said the ShareFile products would help to build on what the company sees as a booming market for cloud storage and collaboration. The company said that while the services were considered personal cloud platforms, Citrix would be targeting the platform at small businesses and larger enterprises alike.

The company said that it would adopt a strategy it called "follow-me-data". The platforms will allow users to back up, manage and share data with those on multiple platforms while allowing developers to link with the services through open APIs.

"This is a highly strategic acquisition that enables Citrix to deliver all three of the critical components for the personal cloud – collaboration, apps and data – with amazing accessibility and productivity on any device," said Citrix president and chief executive Mark Templeton.

"As customers and partners build on this platform, they will be able to easily add follow-me-data services to their software, leverage the data that other apps store there, and instantly inherit all the management, mobility and scalability that’s in the ShareFile infrastructure."

The ShareFile acquisition comes as other IT heavyweights are looking to enter the personal backup and sharing market. Apple recently launched its iCloud service, which allow users to manage and back up data from their devices.

EMC, meanwhile, has been operating its own personal backup services through Mozy, an online archiving firm the company purchased in 2007.