What do you think will happen to Citrix if we don't execute well in Cloud? Look at the buying trends, as Mark T used to say (DOS) don't own stuff. The trends are that those on-prem customers are moving from a CAPEX model to a OPEX model (personally I don't get that but whatever I'm not a CFO). They don't want to own datacenters if its not critical to their business. The SMB market is basically full on in cloud and that's half our business. The other half is Enterprise. People don't want to spend thousands or millions deploying new technology, they want to click a button and have what they need when they need it. Its why we don't all have well water, or power plants at every house. We share those things with others to keep the cost low.
Citrix is dead if we don't move into the cloud. That doesn't mean we forget about our on-prem customers. We will have to work through a period of transition. It will be difficult but it will be worth it. And I don't think we will ever get to the point where we have no box product, some customers will always avoid the cloud. So its not about ignoring our roots, its about embracing them and growing them into a flourishing subscription revenue business. I feel bad for the sales folks since thats probably the most difficult thing in this transition is figuring out how you comp them.
Posted originally by @PAE4k9I-mfr, bumping it up because she/he makes a really good point.