Cisco (News - Alert) and Citrix have expanded their desktop virtualization partnership to cover the challenges of cloud computing, mobility and networking by moving into cloud networking, cloud orchestration and mobile workstyles. To achieve their goal, the two companies will collaborate to help service providers and enterprise customers capture the market which is currently moving into the mobile-cloud era.

The companies plan to integrate Cisco Nexus 1000V with Citrix XenServer, hence giving their customers the power to build clouds based, in part, on key open source technology. Apart from investing in innovative technologies, the partnership also intends to invest in getting a qualified taskforce to fuel the revolution and gather customer support and go-to-market global investments.

In addition to this, the companies will jointly integrate the Citrix NetScaler application delivery controller (ADC (News - Alert)) to work with other Cisco network and security systems like Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS).  In the mix is also an amalgamated cloud application to enable enterprise and service provider deployment featuring Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS), Cisco Open Network Environment (ONE) components and Cisco Nexus Series switching.

With the whole partnership giving so much power to mobile devices, the need to ensure security and data integrity is one that cannot be overlooked. To ensure safety, Citrix and Cisco plan to link Citrix Receiver, Citrix Access Gateway (News - Alert) and Cloud Gateway with the Cisco secure portfolio that comprises of Cisco AnyConnect, Cisco ASA and the Cisco Identity Service Engine (ISE)

Mobile users will get an improvement on the joint mobile work style and BYOD applications, giving them a unified secured access to critical apps and data while on the move. Other things arising from the collaboration will include firmer integration of Cisco Jabber client with Cisco Receiver self-mobile access client and Citrix CloudGateway, securing cloud-based ‘follow-me data’ with Citrix ShareFile among other many cocktails.

Cisco’s transactions however face competition from XSi’s, a third party maintenance alternative to Cisco’s SMARTnet contract. SMARTnet cuts down on downtime through fast expert tech support, flexible hardware coverage and smart proactive device diagnostics. To rival this is the cheaper and more flexible XSi’s contract that goes deeper than Cisco’s plan.