Leap frog to thin client network

Wyse Technologies, the thin clients maker with around 3 million installations world-wide, reckons sales are now outpacing those of PCs. Developer Curt Schwebke, Wyse CTO, reckons growth in manufacturing is due, not just to their robustness compared with PCs, but the availability now of smart cards that allows sessions to follow technicians around facilities. These coupled with the minimal local infrastructure set-up and management requirements, make them are making them an increasingly attractive choice, particularly for businesses with multiple sites, or reliance on a remote datacentre operation. Indeed, Schwebke says thin client support is down at 25% that of PCs, and that blade server technology at the server end is making what was formerly the expensive part of a thin client strategy, is cutting that cost. IT managers will still contest his views, but it’s worth noting that those with older legacy infrastructures, perhaps still based on OS/2, could well now find advantage in skipping an upgrade to PC networks, and going instead for a thin client environment powered by a low cost server cluster.