I haven't had chance to test the apps mentioned - the doco was in effect a preliminary study to examine whether it was worth reviewing the technologies in depth. There are reviews out there - doug brown's just finished Provisionnetworks I think - there are also some reviews on brian's site and on <http://sbc.vanbragt.net/> http://sbc.vanbragt.net/. As a quick summary I looked at - TS on its own; Citrix (A & E) - Provision Networks TSE; Propalms; Genuit's Thinworx, Jetro's CockPIT and an application called Go Global by Graph-on. Of those, citrix and graph-on have their own protocol - everything else uses RDP. There are studies that show ICA as slightly better than RDP, but its not a massive difference - and depending on your network environment possibly not a difference at all. If we use Brian's 'feature set' as an example ( <http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID=494> http://www.brianmadden.com/content/content.asp?ID=494) - say you want to improve your base TS install - and you're looking at adding * Application Publishing * Seamless Windows * Intelligent Load Balancing * SSL Gateway / Proxy * Intelligent Web Interface * Smart Access (disable/enable features based on location) * Workspace Control So your first thought it citrix, but is there anything else? Graph On publishes apps, its seamless, its got load balance - just doesn't have the workspace control and smart access. You do get a cross platform method of publishing apps tho' as it support windows, linux and a number of flavours of unix. Thinworx, CockpIT, ProPalms and TSE all pretty much cover the same bases - but none gives the smart access and workspace control. Thinworx, cockpit and Propalms all gave the 'app publishing, load balancing, ssl gateway/proxy & WI. All suggest that their environments are 'easier to deploy' - none have the concept of zone data collectors for example. Thinworx has a bit of a problem as its 'controller' is a single box and I couldn't see a way of making that fault tolerant. With Provision you get other features like their profile management component, their printing add-on, IP isolation, PNagentesque feature, Max CPU/Memory, access controls - some of which (profile management/application blocking) aren't in Citrix. No one has an RM/IM type product - but it could be argued that in many environments both these can be supplemented by alternative technologies that can do the job as well, if not better. And if you want to monitor your citrix/TS users, maybe something like Performance Guard, the eg Suite or Edgesite (when it comes out) would be a better use of your money. Cost wise, for the environment I was looking at, cheap to expensive it went - Propalms, Provision, ThinWorx, Graph-On, CockPit, CTX A, CTX E And just as an example - Propalms was a third of the cost of CPS A, ProvisionNetworks half. Software maintenance prices were typically much cheaper as well. Of course, you have to weigh up the savings in license (and possibly hardware) costs over, say, support and maintenance, training. But all the technologies employ similar ideals - its not always apples for apples but its apples for something very appley. Is that enough or do you want more? I was going to write something up a little more formally with links an' that and a graph - could do if people are interested. _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Landin, Mark Sent: 07 September 2006 14:42 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for a presentation I am doing Anything you can share would be wonderful. Thanks! _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Wood Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 5:33 AM To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for a presentation I am doing :( 'fraid not in the format its in - its very specific to the environment. It was being used to justify doing more investigation into a 'citrix alternative' - which hopefully it will. I'll try and sort a summary doc - with a pie chart showing a prices comparison which was a bit of an eye opener :O _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Landin, Mark Sent: 06 September 2006 19:23 To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for a presentation I am doing Andrew, I'd love to see your comparison document. In fact I bet most of us would like to see it. Any chance? _____ From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Wood Sent: Wednesday, September 06, 2006 10:55 AM To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [THIN] Re: Looking for your Original/Innovative uses for Citrix for a presentation I am doing Yea - I'd agree Provision have the more feature rich of the competitors - components like manage-it even citrix doesn't really have. But, there's also propalms, cockpit, thinworx, even go-global if you just had something small - all provide a similar service. Propalms are particularly aggressive in their pricing structure. I had to do a cost vs feature comparison document last week - I've said it for a while citrix need to pull their finger out in terms of reassessing their license costs as the 'competition' is running faster than they are imo. _____