Citrix Adds Social Networking Collaboration Cloud Service With Podio

A growing number of enterprises are realizing the value of providing a social-networking intranet for their employees so that they can more easily collaborate on–and monitor the progress of–various projects.

Seeing a clear market opportunity, virtualization software provider Citrix April 11 acquired Podio, a company that provides exactly that: cloud-based work-collaboration software that runs as a social network inside small and midsize enterprises.

Citrix, which recently has been adding new cloud services but is best-known for its virtual desktop infrastructure products and services, said it bought the privately held, Denmark-based company to upgrade its cloud-related application options for small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Podio is little-known in the United States, but will get some attention now that it is part of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Citrix.

Real-time Status Updates for Projects

Podio provides real-time status updates and features the ability to link to, share, manage tasks, comment and give feedback inside business processes. Using these status updates, teams can manage all kinds of business processes and associated workflows using preassembled apps from Podio’s free app market. Go here to explore the market.

In addition, Podio’s collaborative work platform integrates, or can be embedded, into other services that serve as standards in various markets. These include traditional enterprise or business software (such as PowerPoint, Word and Excel) as well as cloud-based data storage, online collaboration and content tools. Examples include Box, SugarSync, Campaign Monitor, Evault, Dropbox, Evernote, FreshBooks, Google Apps, Google Docs, Instapaper and Zendesk.

“Citrix can help us scale to meet demand at a speed that would not be possible otherwise,” Podio CEO Tommy Ahlers said.

Citrix said it will reveal more of its plans for Podio and collaboration strategy at the Synergy conference in San Francisco May 9-11.

Chris Preimesberger is eWEEK’s Editor for Features and Analysis. Twitter: @editingwhiz