Citrix Systems announced European language and telephone system support for the Citrix EasyCall feature in Citrix XenDesktop. EasyCall, which is also available as a feature of Citrix XenApp and Citrix NetScaler, provides a way of seamlessly integrating communications into any application. With its newest release, EasyCall now includes German, French and Spanish (Castilian) language capabilities as well as integration with leading European telephone systems from Siemens and Alcatel-Lucent. As a result, customers delivering virtual desktops with XenDesktop can now provide an even richer experience to end users in more countries around the world.

As software companies begin integrating communications capabilities into their newer applications, customers are beginning to recognize additional cost savings and user productivity. Using EasyCall, customers can now instantly communications-enable all of their existing applications as well with no modification to the applications, telephones or phone systems required. Communication-enabling applications with EasyCall enables users to initiate instant click-to-call capabilities from any telephone number within any application using their company’s existing corporate phone system and rates — thus increasing worker productivity and saving costs on phone charges for users working from home or other remote locations.

First generation virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions simply moved desktops into the datacenter in an attempt to save costs. Next generation desktop delivery systems like XenDesktop dynamically assemble virtualized desktops at runtime and deliver them over the network on demand with LAN-like performance and a rich user experience. In addition to reducing costs for IT, this approach provides end users with a desktop experience that is often even better than using a traditional PC. By incorporating communications capabilities like EasyCall as a built-in feature, XenDesktop now takes this user experience advantage to another level while saving companies further costs in telephony infrastructure and phone service charges.

To engage EasyCall, users simply hover over any telephone number in any application and a small pop-up dialer appears over the number.  When the user clicks on the dialer, EasyCall initiates a call between the user’s preferred telephone – office, mobile or home – and the destination number, employing that user’s corporate telephone system and billing the call at their standard corporate rates, regardless of where the user is actually located.

“EasyCall is another great example of how Citrix is working to improve the user experience by integrating value-added services. Expanded language and telephone system support extend this increased value to our European customers and to new products like XenDesktop,” said Barry Phillips, group vice president and general manager of the Advanced Solutions Group at Citrix. “We believe desktop virtualization should provide a better user experience than a traditional PC and are excited about new capabilities like EasyCall that are helping to make that vision a reality.”