Wyse Refreshes Thin Client Line - Company Business and Marketing

ENT, Oct 11, 2000 by Christopher Mcconnell

Wyse Technology Inc. is making its thin clients leaner and meaner to position them better against the growing value PC market.

Wyse (www.wyse.com) plans to compete against low-cost computers by emphasizing reliability and a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

Wyse's thin clients have no moving parts, run either Windows CE or Windows NT Embedded, and perform a role analogous to the dumb terminals of the mainframe era. The thin clients rely on Microsoft Terminal Services, which allows applications to run on a server and be accessed through a thin client or remote machine.

The appliances are compatible with Windows NT 4, Terminal Server Edition, and the native terminal services in Windows 2000. Wyse also includes Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) for administrators aiming to use Citrix Systems Inc.'s (www.citrix.com) MetaFrame client/server environment. Wyse can also modify thin clients to run other terminal environments.

Jeff McNaught, vice president of customer product marketing at Wyse, suggests that the thin client's reduction in TCO will pay for the unit in two months. The reduction in cost results from lower unit cost, minimal support needs, and higher reliability. Since the thin clients have no moving parts and a stripped down operating system, they are less likely to fail than PCs.

In addition, thin clients are expected to have a five-year life span, contrasted with the three years PCs are typically in production.

"They're designed to be really simple, really easy to use," McNaught says. Because they use a standard Windows Internet Explorer GUI, users who are comfortable using a Windows desktop will feel at home using one of Wyse's thin clients.

The Winterm 3230LE is Wyse's new entry-level thin client. It consists of a box about the size of an Ethernet hub, and includes a network jack and a monitor connection. All of the necessary components are inside of the small box. The 3230LE runs Windows CE and costs less than $500 per unit.

Wyse incorporates a thin client into a 17-inch monitor with its new Winterm 3730LE, creating an all-in-one smart terminal for end users. Like the 3230LE, it runs Windows CE. The entire unit is priced at $799.

McNaught calls the Winterm 8230LE a "solid-state PC." Although it has no moving parts, it can run applications independently of a host server. He says this functionality fits retail environments well: if a network is connection is cut, the unit can still function, then sync up when the network is restored. The 8230LE is an updated version of the WinCat Wyse released in the spring. The client sells for $849 and runs NT Embedded.