Return of the Thin Client

posted by Allan@TechCrammer @ 4:20pm, Thursday 30 October 2008.

Remember the “Green� screens with the Wyse terminals and (DG) Data General systems working over serial lines? Well, it really did make perfect financial sense to run these “thin clients� or “dumb terminals� back in the days when you spent well over a $1,000 for your hot new 386 server with 16MB of RAM, 100MB hard drive and monochrome video !

As personal computers have evolved and become more affordable, the thin clients started getting shelved, and if we had to (legacy apps) we could just run a terminal emulator on our brand new desktop PC. High performance and low prices have become so common place, that even the BYO (Build Your Own) computer hobbyist isn't as popular as they once were. You can buy a decent computer and maybe put some new RAM or additional hard drive in and you are all set. Just sell your old PC on Ebay to put some money towards a nice shiny new system. Why not?

In recent years we (citizens of Earth) are (at least I hope) becoming more aware of our environment and the “green� philosophy. With this in mind, a thin client once again becomes an important factor; providing us with a low cost and energy efficient alternative. Also reducing the amount of electronics that should be recycled and instead are finding there way into landfills. I was researching some computer upgrades for a company with about 12 PCs, some still running DOS and NT 4.0 (you get the picture) and ran across the NComputing.com product line. It is true, we are not truly utilizing the full potential of our computers. Also for anyone who has ever been in a system administration role, the less computers to deal with, equals less time hassling with software updates and hardware failures.

I haven't tried the product yet and not sure what other similar products there are out there. This is an ideal situation for many consumers including small offices, student computer labs, kiosks, governmental organizations, etc. Saving the environment, saving money and saving tech support time. Certainly sounds like a good business model to follow.

Be Green...

-Allan

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