Like sands through the hourglass, so are the stories of Microsoft mergers. Once more, rumors are swirling that Microsoft might buy Citrix. By my count, this is the fifth time this particular rumor has emerged. In addition, though, this time around I’m hearing that some people think Microsoft might buy Novell.
Oh please.
Microsoft, in case you’ve forgotten, just flopped in its attempt to buy Yahoo. Steve Ballmer may be a great salesman, and he does a mean monkey dance, but he’s no businessman. Would someone fire Ballmer already and put Microsoft out of its misery?
Even with my low opinion, I can’t believe that Ballmer would be dumb enough to waste money buying Citrix. Citrix, since WinFrame back in the mid-90s and then MetaFrame in the 2000s, has acted as a de facto branch of Microsoft. To really use MetaFrame, you not only had to have a license for each MetaFrame remote Windows client, you also had to have Windows Terminal Server license and/or a Windows desktop license for each remote session. Thus, every Citrix customer became a Microsoft customer. What’s not to like?