An Australian legal organisation was approaching a major technology renewal and wanted to test whether moving from Citrix to Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) with third-party management software (including Citrix) would deliver better value.
The question was not simply which solution with AVD had the lower headline license price. It was which approach would provide the required security, user experience, management, resilience and flexibility at the lowest sustainable operating cost.
Com-X, with expertise across a broad range of third-party technologies, took an impartial approach to the review. The detailed proof-of-value exercise compared the two approaches across licensing, infrastructure, operational requirements, security, persona requirements, user experience and future flexibility.
It was deliberately framed as Microsoft AVD with third-party software versus Microsoft AVD with Citrix, rather than as a simplistic Citrix-versus-Microsoft comparison. This reflects the strength of the joint proposition: Citrix is already the preferred Microsoft Global Azure Partner solution for Enterprise Desktop as a Service when Citrix and Microsoft are collaborating with joint Azure customers. Citrix also complements Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365, enabling customers to use Microsoft Azure while retaining the broader Citrix platform capabilities.
“Technology decisions should not be made by comparing one license with another. The real question is what it takes to deliver the required user experience, security, management and scalability, and what value the organisation can unlock from the technology it already owns.” – Nick Cross, Director of Sales and Marketing, Com-X
The Com-X Approach: Comparing the Complete Operating Model
Working with Citrix’s Australian team and CXANZ, Citrix’s strategic business partner in Australia and New Zealand, Com-X mapped the customer’s requirements against both operating models and identified where the alternative would require additional products, services or operational effort. The analysis considered:
• software and platform licensing
• Azure compute, storage and network consumption
• monitoring and observability
• security and access controls
• operational and management capabilities
• Persona types and their requirements
• user experience and scalability
• hybrid and multi-cloud requirements
• the value of the customer’s existing Citrix entitlements.
This avoided a misleading comparison between a single Citrix entitlement and only the base Microsoft AVD service. It also showed where capabilities already included in the customer’s Citrix Universal Hybrid Multi-Cloud entitlement would otherwise need to be recreated through separate third-party software tools with Microsoft AVD.
The Finding: Lower Operating Cost and Stronger Value
In the customer’s assessed scenario, the joint Microsoft AVD and Citrix operational cost review identified an operational saving of nearly 20 per cent compared with Microsoft AVD supported by third-party software and the additional technologies required to deliver the target service.
That saving equated to nearly AU$250,000 per year. On the customer’s investment case, the resulting benefit represented a return of more than 165 per cent on the Citrix licensing investment. These figures are specific to the customer’s estate, requirements, usage profile and pricing assumptions; they are not presented as a universal benchmark.
The cost-per-persona analysis shows why a true like-for-like comparison must account for each user group’s requirements. Across all personas, the Microsoft AVD and Citrix model reduces around $800 per user while maintaining the capabilities required for each profile.
The comparison included the complete cost of operating the service, including Azure consumption, monitoring, management, security and other supporting capabilities. It therefore tested total operating cost rather than relying on a software-only license comparison. The analysis also identified potential additional benefits from automated scaling, reduced duplication, more efficient use of existing infrastructure and alignment on customer technology roadmap goals.
The Value of the Existing Citrix Investment
The review found that the customer’s Citrix entitlement already provided a broad set of capabilities relevant to delivering the required service and provided a roadmap to broader adoption and a more secure operating workspace, including Citrix DaaS with Microsoft AVD, NetScaler ADC, XenServer Premium, Citrix SecurAccess ZTNA, Citrix Experience Insights, Citrix Device Posture, Citrix UniconOS and related workspace-management functionality.
The practical implication was significant. Instead of assembling separate tools to provide comparable monitoring, security, access, management and workspace capabilities, the organisation could use more of what it already owned. That reduced technology duplication and helped the customer avoid treating an existing investment as a sunk cost.
“Many customers view Citrix and AVD as competing solutions. In reality, they can use and benefit by combining the strengths of both. AVD provides a scalable Azure-based platform, while Citrix adds class-leading management, security and user experience capabilities, creating a unified platform that supports hybrid and multi-cloud strategies, without breaking the bank. With expert guidance from Com-X, organisations can implement Citrix + AVD for a more optimised environment, simplified administration, and a lower total cost of ownership.” – Darryl D'Costa, Sales Solutions Specialist at CXANZ.
A stronger proposition for legal organisations
For a legal organisation handling highly sensitive client information, the operating model must support more than access to a Windows desktop. The assessment considered contextual access and device posture, observability, session security, application protection, granular policy control and the operational visibility required to investigate and manage user sessions.
Citrix also provided a pathway across on-premises infrastructure, Azure and AWS, with support for hybrid and multi-cloud delivery, Windows 365 integration, flexible scaling and desktop-as-a-service requirements. This gave the customer greater freedom to evolve its environment without making every future decision dependent on a single delivery model.
The assessment brought together Com-X, Citrix and CXANZ, combining customer-specific analysis, Citrix platform expertise and local market perspective to test the options objectively and demonstrate where the existing Citrix investment could deliver greater value for the client.
The Outcome: a Renewal Decision Based on Evidence
The exercise gave the customer a like-for-like view of the financial and operational implications of its options. Rather than assuming that a move to Microsoft AVD with third-party software would be simpler or cheaper, the organisation could assess the full-service requirements it needed to operate and the capabilities already available through Citrix.
The conclusion was not that Microsoft AVD is unsuitable. Microsoft’s AVD offering is a valid and powerful component of a modern digital workspace strategy. The conclusion was that Microsoft AVD with Citrix delivered the strongest proposition for this customer and outperformed other third-party offerings when combined with Microsoft AVD: lower assessed operating cost, more value from existing entitlements, fewer capability gaps to close and greater flexibility across the customer’s future environment.
Why This Matters
Digital workspace renewal decisions should be based on the cost and capability of the complete operating model and the technology and security objectives of the business. A third-party software proposition may claim that Citrix is legacy or that customers can save by moving away from it. In this customer-specific analysis, the results were different: Citrix delivered more of the required service capability within the existing investment and produced a stronger overall economic case.
Com-X helps organisations assess that difference. By modelling the customer’s own users, workloads, Azure consumption, entitlements, operational requirements and security expectations, Com-X provides an evidence-based view of whether changing platforms will genuinely improve value – or whether the better outcome is to use the existing Citrix investment more effectively alongside Microsoft Azure.
Customer Outcomes
• Nearly 20 per cent lower assessed operational cost than Microsoft AVD with third-party software
• Nearly AU$250,000 in annual operating cost benefit
• More than 165 per cent return on Citrix licensing investment in the customer’s business case
• Reduced duplication of monitoring, security, management and workspace capabilities
• A stronger path across Citrix, Microsoft Azure, Windows 365 and hybrid or multi-cloud requirements
• A renewal decision grounded in the customer’s own data rather than headline license assumptions from third-party competitors
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About Com-X
Com-X is Australia’s leading digital workspaces and cyber security specialist, supplying government and enterprise organisations with solutions that drive compliance, efficiency and resilience. Our expertise includes secure digital workspaces, Essential 8 cyber security maturity, SASE and Zero Trust architectures, endpoint protection, data governance and workflow automation. Combining technical excellence with a deep understanding of organisational challenges,
Com-X helps clients modernise, safeguard operations and embrace future technologies with confidence.
About CXANZ
CXANZ is the local Citrix team across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific, backed by global expertise and focused on helping customers and partner’s win.
Citrix has evolved, and CXANZ is driving that momentum. Our local expertise remains at the core of what we do, strengthened by closer global alignment. We’re simplifying how we work, strengthening how we deliver, and accelerating growth for our customers and partners.
Learn more at cxanz.com
About Citrix
For over 35 years, Citrix has helped organisations securely deliver and access applications and data, wherever work happens. Today, Citrix supports the evolving application value chain across secure desktops, application delivery, enterprise browser, zero-trust access, network intelligence and endpoint control.
As technology and the way we work continue to evolve, Citrix provides a reliable, resilient foundation for organisations to securely operate at scale — particularly in mission-critical industries including healthcare, financial services and government.
Learn more at citrix.com.
