Thin and Thinner: Wireless Poised to Shake Up Thin Client Landscape - Industry Trend or Event

ENT, Oct 11, 2000 by Joseph Mckendrick

IT managers are finding the promised land of thin-client and server-based computing a frustrating and difficult place. But they are discovering significant cost savings there, and few who have headed down the path are looking for a way back. What's more, the coming explosion of ultra-thin wireless devices makes server-based computing likely to grow in importance.

ENT recently conducted a Web survey of randomly selected IT managers and professionals to check the pulse of the thin-client market. A total of 109 companies responded to the survey, representing a range of industries.

For years, the IT industry has toyed with several approaches to thin-client computing. The common element to all of the approaches has been the concept of an access device that relies on the network rather than local processing power or storage.

Is the era of big disk drives on corporate clients over? About three out of five IT respondents -- 64 percent - indicate the answer is yes. These managers report having some type of thin-client deployment at their sites.

But these thin clients are as varied in architecture as the Chicago skyline. While the common perception of a thin client is that of lightweight hardware devices, a browser running on a fully-loaded PC can also be considered just as "thin" in many respects. The benefits are far-reaching as well, from lowering administrative costs to providing equal access and ending technology inequities among user groups. "We now can avoid the perennial computer envy issue. When we upgrade a location, everyone is upgraded simultaneously," says one survey participant, an IT manager for a large utility.

The survey also confirms that thin-client computing -- no matter how you define it -- is on a growth trajectory. Most sites, in fact, still use Windows NT Workstation or Windows 3.1/95/98 PCs as their thin-client operating systems. Interestingly, while Windows CE has been knocked around, 37 percent of respondents with thin-client systems have deployed this thinned-down version of the Windows operating system. Wireless technologies are also having their day: 22 percent of respondents use these devices in some form or another, and say usage will grow.

On average, about 52 percent of respondents' applications are thin-client enabled, typically reaching about 800 end users. A vast majority of companies with thin clients, 83 percent, expect the number of thinned-down end users to grow over the coming year.

Connectivity

By far, the most popular deployment of thin clients among survey respondents was use of a terminal server on Windows NT/2 000 to deliver applications to networked PCs. Microsoft's Windows Terminal Server leads the pack in terms of thin-client connectivity method, adopted by 70 percent of responding sites using thin clients. Citrix WinFrame is a close second, adopted by 66 percent.

The interplay between these two solutions was evident among respondents as well, and some were not happy with the way the market has been unfolding. "Microsoft interfered with the Citrix marketplace when it introduced Windows NT Terminal Server Edition," says the IT director for a major health care organization, which supports 1,000 thin clients. "We had to adopt a holding pattern with Citrix WinFrame until Microsoft achieved better performance with Windows 2000."

"Thin clients are not all they're piped up to be," agrees the IT manager of a midwestern financial services firm. "We deployed Citrix and were so unhappy that they moved to Windows Terminal Server, and then we became even unhappier. So we reverted back to Citrix."

One respondent, an IT manager at a major eastern utility, decries the complexity of configuring Windows Terminal Server.

"Features such as lock-down policies and load balancing take significant effort," he says. Plus, cost issues get in the way. "When last I tried to justify a thin-client project, the Windows Terminal Server cost was much higher than the cost of a stand-alone workstation, which by the way we are getting pretty good at managing."

Another 31 percent said they achieved thin-client connectivity through browser-based, front-end deployments. "Thin client is overrated at this time," according to one respondent. "We already have thin clients everywhere through Web browsers with Web applications," he adds.

A related approach for accessing legacy systems -- PC-to-host and Web-to-host terminal emulation -- were each used by 17 percent of the respondents.

Wireless

While the market has been in overdrive with wireless announcements and pronouncements, only 5 percent of respondents with thin clients enable connectivity through this method. However, more than half of companies with thin-client systems -- 52 percent -- expect to increase commitment to wireless solutions over the coming year. Almost a quarter of this group expects to see an increase in wireless thin clients of greater than 25 percent.

Among the handful of companies that have adopted wireless, the average number of users is about 36. One company in the survey reports having 200 wireless-based users.