Citrix Systems has acquired New Zealand-based company Beetil, in an effort to expand the capabilities of its remote support offering GoToAssist, the company said on Monday.
As a result of the acquisition, Citrix will be able to offer remote support, monitoring and, with the help of Beetil, service desk management with GoToAssist, the company said.
Beetil's software-as-a-service application is based on the ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) framework and covers incident, problem, change, release and configuration management tracking.
Users of the application can log incidents that need to be resolved and prioritize them depending on how soon they need to be resolved according to the service-level agreement. It also alerts users to incidents and problems it has seen before, and links to information that will help solve them. This allows IT staff to save time by not having to re-invent the wheel, according to Beetil.
Citrix didn't say when Beetil's application will become an integrated part of GoToAssist.
The growing number of mobile devices is putting increased pressure on IT departments to offer support both on and off company networks, according to Citrix. Today, GoToAssist can be used to fix issues on PCs, Macs, iPhones, iPads and Android-based devices remotely.
A recent upgrade of GoToAssist allows IT staff to deliver support directly from their Android-based smartphone or tablet. It was already possible to do the same using an Apple iPhone or iPad, according to Citrix. The upgrade also included French and German versions and session recording.
For existing Beetil customers there is no need to worry, according to a Beetil blog post. The company assures they won't be affected by the acquisition and its existing pricing will remain unchanged. Today Beetil charges $39 per user per month for the first five users, according to its website.
Further development of the product will also continue unabated, the blog post said.
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but the Beetil team will join Citrix's organization immediately. Dan Lee, founder and CEO of Beetil, will report to Elizabeth Cholawsky, general manager of the IT Support business unit at Citrix.
