Citrix: Making real money from virtualization

Virtualization is certainly a killer technology (essentially allowing for better utilization of software, servers, data centers and so on). It's also a big money maker, as seen with the performance of VMware (NYSE: VMW).

But Citrix is also ramping up on virtualization. It helps that the company has a robust technology platform. Hey, just look at the company's Q4 results. Revenues increased 25% to $399.6 million and profits went from $52.9 million, or $0.29 per share to $62.8 million, or $0.33 per share. License revenues increased a healthy 24% to $178 million.

There was strength across the board, such as with its Presentation Server (there were six deals with price tags over $1 million) and the online services division, which saw a 37% increase in revenues over the past year to $59 million.

But the big bet is on XenSource, a cutting-edge provider of virtualization technologies (Citrix recently purchased the company). It's still in the early stages but it looks like the growth may be explosive. For example, Citrix has key deals with Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). The goal is to get to $50 million in revenues for 2008. And, keep in mind that – according to a study from ITC – the market for virtualization software and services is expected to reach $15 billion by 2011.

So far, investors seem to be excited. In today's trading, Citrix's shares increased 7.16% to $34.29.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.