The Citrix Startup Accelerator is one of the casualties of a strategic restructuring by Citrix that also includes 1,000 layoffs and the spin out of the “GoTo” division as its own public company.

Announced last week, the strategic restructuring will not have significant impact on the Raleigh office, with only a handful of jobs at risk.

The Citrix Startup Accelerator, with locations in Santa Barbara, Silicon Valley, Bangalore, and Raleigh, cultivates breakthrough mobile, cloud and collaboration technologies, according to the company. The future of the program remains shrouded, even with reports from the News & Observer and Triangle Business Journal that indicate the program will wind down. Both reports indicate the company’s indecision, noting the spokesperson for the company remains hopeful the program will continue.

They’re not the only ones hopeful the program will continue for its third year. “We don’t have a definite answer regarding the future of the program at this point,” said Alyson Sutton, director of marketing at HQ Raleigh, a partner organization in the project. “Citrix is committed to Raleigh and has great partnerships with local groups like Red Hat, Cherokee, and HQ.”

“It’s one of the strongest programs in terms of local support,” said Sutton, “so they will continue to work to bring the program back next year.”

“Akili Software and our Savii Care platform benefited from the Citrix Innovators Program in Raleigh,” said Michelle Harper, founder and CEO of Akili Software. “I truly believe we ended the 10 week program a year ahead of where we would have been without it.”

The Innovators Program enabled the company to really prove their business model, said Harper, enabling her and her team to understand the true nuts and bolts of launching a company. “The startup space in North Carolina benefits from having someone like Citrix,” said Harper, “They are in tune not just with what is happening in our local startup ecosystem, but with a world wide view of what is happening and how to build successful startups and deliver true innovations.”

The night before Citrix Systems announced the organizational restructure, John McIntyre, the managing director of the Citrix Startup Accelerator, published a blog post on the accelerator’s website.

In the post, McIntyre discusses the term “dancing elephants,” which he recently learned was the term given to large corporations attempting to be agile.

“Large businesses are not only not good at disruptive innovation,” wrote McIntyre, “they are fundamentally organized to resist break-through change.”

Within the past 15 years, argues McIntyre, a new breed of startups has begun to emerge. These startups are darlings of Silicon Valley, are heavily funded, and are disrupting nearly every industry, including technology, media, hospitality, transportation, commerce, health, and more.

“Now the elephants feel they need to learn to dance or face extinction,” concluded McIntyre.

It is within this context that McIntyre makes a case for the Citrix Startup Accelerator, which prior to launching in Raleigh, had existed for three years in their California office. In total, the program has incubated more than 60 teams, making seed investments in roughly half of them.

In addition to Citrix, the Raleigh Innovators Program is supported by Red Hat, Cherokee Challenge, HQ Raleigh, and the City of Raleigh, though Citrix has been housing the program at its office in downtown Raleigh.

“Red Hat has enjoyed working with Citrix, Cherokee, HQ Raleigh, and the City of Raleigh on the Raleigh Innovators Program,” said DeLisa Alexander, executive vice president and chief people officer, Red Hat. “We look forward to conversations around an Innovators Program in 2016 and beyond.”

The twelve teams that comprise the current cohort will pitch at Demo Day in Raleigh on December 8, 2015. It may be the last pitch day in Raleigh for the Citrix Startup Accelerator and the Raleigh Innovators Program. A decision about the future of the program will likely follow the Demo Day, though it may come as late as mid-2016.

“With all the new accelerators coming to market,” said McIntyre, “our program is still the only one that combines the most promising enterprise technology startups to work alongside internal corporate product teams in every cohort.”

“We have some great local accelerators,” said Harper. “However, I think something unique will be gone with the elimination of the Citrix program in Raleigh.”

So, the question remains: will more elephants invest in dance lessons? And will McIntyre and his team continue to lead the class?