Is Citrix right for us?

TwistedPsycho

Surely if you pay £170 for service and support, then the configuration is part of the support?

cazziebo

TwistedPsycho wrote: »

Surely if you pay £170 for service and support, then the configuration is part of the support?

yes it is. The fact is it doesn't work for us and the company blame any fault on everything but the build. To be honest. I dread calling the helpdesk - it's always a long call with rarely a positive outcome.

Quenastoise

Shermanator wrote: »

Regardless of what software you use for remote connections, it will only ever be as good as the connection at your office and the connection where you are at that time.
HTH

I agree with that. We have Citrix in virtually all our bases. The office 30 miles up the road has a cheaper line, a slow connection and frequent breaks in the service, whereas as we have a more powerful ISDN line we hardly experience any problems.

Having said that, we do have days when the whole network cannot be accessed for long periods of time but I suspect it's down to other network issues rather than Citrix itself.

As a user, I actually think that Citrix is a great concept. If it's a choice between the flexibiity of remote working with the odd hiccup or working all the hours God makes in the office with a system that never fails, I know which option I prefer.

cazziebo

Quenastoise wrote: »

I agree with that. We have Citrix in virtually all our bases. The office 30 miles up the road has a cheaper line, a slow connection and frequent breaks in the service, whereas as we have a more powerful ISDN line we hardly experience any problems.

Having said that, we do have days when the whole network cannot be accessed for long periods of time but I suspect it's down to other network issues rather than Citrix itself.

As a user, I actually think that Citrix is a great concept. If it's a choice between the flexibiity of remote working with the odd hiccup or working all the hours God makes in the office with a system that never fails, I know which option I prefer.

I've been working from home since 2000 and never had the problems I've had with Citrix. In fact, the old dial up days were better than this. We have a great connection at home so I can't agree that's the sole issue.

buglawton

It would probably take a day for a 'general expert' to understand and satisfy your needs using Google resources. Perhaps this person would charge a support fee of £250-£500 per year (there should be few tech issues).

Are you paying an additional support fee for maintaining your hardware? Maybe the whole thing could be in one package.

cazziebo

buglawton wrote: »

It would probably take a day for a 'general expert' to understand and satisfy your needs using Google resources. Perhaps this person would charge a support fee of £250-£500 per year (there should be few tech issues).

Are you paying an additional support fee for maintaining your hardware? Maybe the whole thing could be in one package.

Interestingly my last company (small about 10 people but very cash rich) used an IT guy who I think ran his service from his bedroom. It was about £50 a month and we rarely had any issues. Used webmail and a VPN. He only does local (West of Scotland) and I'm now in London.

We do pay someone for hardware (I don't think we needed it, everything is either under warranty or needing replaced) but just in the door and didn't want to argue. My experience is that if you have two techies they'll always blame the other.. Cost is small - less than £20 a month.

kabayiri

cazziebo wrote: »

yes it is. The fact is it doesn't work for us and the company blame any fault on everything but the build. To be honest. I dread calling the helpdesk - it's always a long call with rarely a positive outcome.

Your problem is that the relationship between you and the supplier is not on a solid footing.

It's not about Citrix as such. Citrix is a well proven product with a great track record. But it does require people who know what they are doing, and we have no idea how your supplier measures up in this respect.

I'd suggest going back to basics, and on a functional level, working out everything you need to achieve. Compile a list of things that :-
a) are key to your business
b) are nice but not crucial
c) are not of interest to you.

Once you have the list you can then assess how well your current set up meets each of the things in a), and to a lesser extent b). Be fair and measured about each benchmark.

Then go back to the supplier and see if your benchmark expectations are realistic.

nowtsquared

As others have mentioned, I would have good look at the Google products, they have an offer directly pitched at non-profits and the educational sector. If you can, setup a service and trial it with a single user to iron out the wrinkles and then move others across as and when you can. Remote access and speed problems should disappear. Are you aware that 800lb gorilla in the room also offer a cloud based document service ? Can't say I would recommend it but it does work. HTH

buglawton

That's amazoning.

itwiz

cazziebo, I tried to send you a PM but my browser crashed. Please check and let me know whether you received it. Thanks.