彭博社报道：Citrix准备斥资20亿美元收购协作软件公司Wrike

Citrix Systems Inc., which sells network security and desktop virtualization software tools, is reportedly trying to expand into the collaboration space by acquiring the work management platform provider Wrike Inc. in a deal valued at more than billion.

据有关报道，销售网络安全和桌面虚拟化软件工具的Citrix Systems Inc.试图通过收购工作管理平台提供商Wrike Inc.进军拓展协作领域，该交易的价值超过20亿美元。

Bloomberg, which first reported the news, cited people familiar with the matter as saying talks are at an ¡°advanced¡± stage and the deal could be concluded this week.

彭博社首先报道了这一消息，彭博社援引知情人士称，谈判已进入“后期阶段”，交易可能在本周内完成。

The acquisition of Wrike, which is owned by Vista Equity Partners, would be the largest in Citrix¡¯s history, Bloomberg added. It would also mean a solid profit for Vista, which acquired a majority stake in Wrike in 2018 for about 0 million.

彭博社还表示，收购Vista Equity Partners拥有的Wrike将会是Citrix历史上最大的一次收购。这对Vista来说也意味着稳赚不赔，Vista曾在2018年以约8亿美元的价格收购了Wrike的大部分股权。

The Wrike platform is a digital work management tool that teams can use to track dates and dependencies associated with projects, manage assignments and resources, and track time. It also provides collaboration tools designed to aid in conversations, asset creation and decision-making. They include a Live co-editor, discussion threads on tasks and tools for attaching documents, editing them and tracking their changes.

Wrike平台是个数字工作管理工具，各种团队可以利用Wrike跟踪与项目相关的日期和依赖性、管理任务和资源及跟踪项目时间。Wrike还提供一些协作工具，可帮助对话、资产创建和决策。协作工具还包括一个即时共同编辑器、任务讨论话题以及用于附加文件、编辑文件和跟踪更改的工具。

Citrix has a few products that help enable remote work such as its content collaboration tools, but Bloomberg said acquiring Wrike would enable it to become much more competitive in the collaboration software market.

Citrix旗下有一些现存的用于帮助实现远程办公的产品，如旗下的内容协作工具，但彭博社表示，收购Wrike将使得Citrix在协作软件市场上更具竞争力。

"If Citrix is truly buying Wrike, it would likely integrate that platform with those content collaboration tools," analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy told SiliconANGLE.

Moor Insights & Strategy的分析师Patrick Moorhead告诉记者，“如果Citrix真收购了Wrike，Citrix就很可能会将Wrike平台与那些内容协作工具整合在一起。”

Citrix¡¯s desire to get back into collaboration might seem odd, as the company previously had a strong presence in the space with its GoTo Meeting platform. However, Citrix sold GoTo Meeting for about .8 billion to the remote desktop access provider LogMeIn Inc. in 2016 after pressure from the activist investor Elliott Management Inc.

Citrix想重回协作领域看起来可能很奇怪，Citrix此前曾凭借GoTo Meeting平台在该领域拥有强大的影响力。但在2016年迫于激进投资商Elliott Management Inc.的压力，Citrix曾以约18亿美元的价格将GoTo Meeting卖给远程桌面访问提供商LogMeIn Inc。

In the last year, the collaboration space has suddenly become extremely profitable due to the coronavirus pandemic that prompted a massive rise in the popularity of remote work. Wrike¡¯s rivals in the market include Slack Technologies Inc., itself the subject of a takeover by Salesforce.com Inc., as well as Asana Inc. and Trello Inc., which is owned by Atlassian Inc.

去年由于冠状病毒的流行，远程办公的普及率大幅上升，协作领域突然变得十分地有利可图，Wrike的竞争对手包括Slack Technologies Inc.（Slack本身又是Salesforce.com Inc.的收购对象）、Asana Inc.以及 Atlassian Inc.旗下的Trello Inc.。

Analyst Charles King of Pund-IT Inc. told SiliconANGLE that Go To Meeting was more focused on enabling communications between employees, whereas the Wrike platform is more about supporting teams and other forms of collaboration.

Pund-IT公司的分析师Charles King告诉记者，GoTo Meeting更侧重于实现员工之间的沟通，而Wrike平台则更多的是支持团队之间以及其他形式的协作。

"Salesforce's acquisition of Slack may be an unspoken driver for this deal but it also seems clear that the competitive landscape for Citrix has become increasingly complicated since the arrival of Covid-19," King said.

King表示，“Salesforce对Slack的收购可能是这笔交易心照不宣的驱动力，但另一方面似乎也很明显，自从Covid-19出现后，Citrix的竞争环境也变得越来越复杂了。”

From another angle, Citrix's acquisition of Wrike would also mean it's moving out of platform software and into the software-as-a-service space too, said Constellation Research Inc.'s Holger Mueller. Wrike's platform would be complementary to some of its existing offerings and expand its wallet share in the collaboration space too, he said.

Constellation Research Inc.的Holger Mueller表示，从另一个角度来看，Citrix收购Wrike也意味着Citrix将走出平台软件领域及进入软件即服务领域。他表示，Wrike的平台可与Citrix旗下现有的一些产品互补并增加Citrix在协作领域的钱包份额。

"It's also possible Citrix wants to emulate the ServiceNow strategy of expanding into the related space of project management," Mueller added. "It's perhaps also a sign that the application virtualization market, as dynamic it may be, is getting commoditized quickly."

Mueller还补充表示，“Citrix也有可能是想效仿ServiceNow的策略拓展项目管理的相关领域。这或许也是个迹象，说明了应用虚拟化市场虽然很有活力，但正在迅速商品化。”