Thin Client Computing (aka the Death of the PC)

IT Solutions that Work^SM

Overview

Those of you old enough to be around during the early days of the computing industry (like your author) will remember the venerable dumb terminal. It was a simple but solid & stable device that supported text input and connected to the mainframe via a modem. It did not have a disk drive or other peripherals. Maintenance costs were zero.

Contrast this to current situation in which one of the more significant IT costs to organizations of all sizes, is the support of endpoint devices, namely workstations, desktops, laptops, and netbooks. Even if properly secured and administered, things do go wrong for a multitude of reasons including: operating system vulnerabilities, constant patching, patches that break other applications, users downloading virus laden applications and so forth. Furthermore, the costs of anti-virus and firewall licenses, office suites licenses, operating system licenses adds to the total cost of ownership equation.

By why do we need them anymore? The answer is, in most cases you don't. Using the healthcare industry as an example, it has been moving steadily towards a more centralized approach by putting their core EHR and practice management applications on a centralized server running windows Terminal Services or Citrix. We have also seen this same schema in the insurance and financial services industry. Even the office suites have migrated to the server environment. To the user, it still looks the same as the desktop has the same look and feel as their old pc/laptop. This is now called desktop virtualization

From maintenance standpoint, instead of managing licenses, software and endpoint devices for multiple users, you instead need only manage a couple of servers. Patching licensing, backup and recovery, are all an order of magnitude easier.

So why does the reliance upon expensive laptops and PCs if all the desktops and applications can now reside on the corporate servers? The answer is complex. We have talked to several customers and get a numerous answers, but in general they fall into two buckets: 1) we run high graphics intensive design software and 2) it is just habit. The first answer is partially valid, the second is not.

IT Solutions that Work^SM

In the early days of the computing industry the venerable Wyse Terminal was one of market leaders in so called "dumb terminals". As the PC revolution developed, the Wyse terminal found support amongst the UNIX community while at the same time Wyse marketed their own brand of PCs.

Wyse Thin OS Devices.

Now as things are moving back to a more centralized administered model, Wyse has developed a line of Thin Client Smart Devices some of which support dual DVI monitors. They have a tiny embedded Operating System (OS). A Terminal Services and Citrix clients and a means to establish secure VPN connections via internet. That is it. No hard drives to crash, corrupt, or get infected, no anti-virus or firewall license, no operating system that needs a bunch of patches every Tuesday. They are simple, small and very fast.

True story: when we set the first of these thin clients devices one up at a customer, we walked in, unpacked, plugged it in, hooked up the key board and monitors (dual Davis) set the address of their terminal Sever then announced to our customer contact we were done and leaving. Her jaw dropped. "That's it?" She asked? And that was it: only 20 minutes from start to finish and we have not touched it since. Typically it took us several hours to deploy a new workstation customizing the anti-virus, firewall, and other custom images. No more. We have deployed these in several industries now including healthcare, insurance and financial services.

Here is a great article from Forbes about the Death of the PC

Click here for the Wyse V-Class Datasheet

Still need Windows? Now we always get the statement that it will not work because "we need to run a few custom applications on the end-user device and need the Windows Operating System (OS)". No problem as Wyse has line of thin computing products with an embedded Windows XP operating system and manageable and customizable via the Wyse Device Manager (WDM).

Solutions for Old PCs. Do you have old PCs and on a tight budget. Then the Wyse PC Extender may be perfect for you. Wyse PC Extender extends the life of legacy PC 'capital assets' as reconfigured and fully-optimized thin clients, which in turn, also eliminates expensive support and management costs.

With Wyse PC Extender, organizations can now access the benefits of a secure, cost effective virtualized computing environment today, with a seamless PC-to-thin client transition strategy in place for tomorrow.

All Wyse products support wireless & wired mice & keyboards, sound, and depending on the unit, USB peripheral devices.

Mobile Solution. Wyse even has laptop form factor Thin OS device!

Please Contact us learn more about Wyse Thin Client solutions and which is the best fit for your organization!

We just don't talk about IT, we get IT done.^SM