[THIN] Notebooks, the thorn in thin client's side

  • From: Greg Reese <gareese@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Thin <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 10:31:54 +1200

I am not convinced I agree with this.  They don't strike me as very
informed about what is what in terminals services and Citrix which
they make no mention of.

Greg

From ZDNet.com:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=1495


6/13/2005
Notebook - the thorn in the thin client's side
-Posted by David Berlind @ 9:43 am 

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Not a year goes by where Sun and others don't extol the virtues of
thin clients — devices of limited intelligence that provide access to
enterprise applications.   To be a really good thin client these days,
a device must support the primary protocols of terminal-based access
to certain applications.  Such protocols invariably include the Web
and Windows Terminal protocols, and Java Virtual Machine capabilities,
as well as some older ones like X Windows and 3270 access. 
Supposedly, not only are the terminals cheaper (actually they've had a
tough time beating the cheapest PCs), but their inability to run
executable code or to save information to a local storage device (eg:
a USB key) also means that that they can't be the source of major
security headaches.  Another big benefit is that you can log on
anywhere, and your "configuration" follows you everywhere you go.

But one cat that the thin client approach has never quite skinned is
the mobility cat.  Until we have 24/7 access to a network (regardless
of where we are… the beach, a plane, etc.) there are millions of
people who won't be able to get work done when they need to get it
done if all they have is a thin client device.  And that number is on
the rise as more and more employers offer or require that their
employees work from locations other than their offices or cubicles.  
For this reason, notebook computers and increasingly, PDAs — both of
which are intelligent devices with local storage — continue to gain
ground as the preferences of end-users.   I was reminded of this fact
by a recent news story that marked an important milestone (one that
thin-clients will probably never reach).

According to a recent study, May 2005 marks the first month in history
during which more notebooks were sold than desktops.   That trend was
obviously helped along by another trend — that of home office users
establishing a preference for notebooks over desktops.  Uh, doh. 
Given how just about everybody has a WiFi access point in their homes
these days, what would you want?  A desktop that you have to drag
around the house from your office to the living room (if you want to
catch some TV) to your bed?  Or, a notebook? For more than three
years,  I've been recommending against the purchase of desktop
computers.  In fact, outside of my son's tricked-out Alienware gaming
system (which, he laments, he can't take very easily take it to
tournaments), I can't remember the last time I touched a desktop
system.

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