Bladewatch.com

http://www.vnunet.com/itweek/analysis/2202144/wyse-takes-aim-die-hard-pc-3585361

Wyse Technology has several initiatives under way as part of a new effort to penetrate enterprises that have so far rejected thin clients.

As well as more capable hardware, Wyse has unveiled TCX Multimedia, which enables thin clients to better deliver multimedia content; and an architecture it calls Zero Client computing, whereby the devices are completely stateless and boot from a server every time they are switched on.

Wyse’s Zero Client strategy sees it ship thin clients with no Flash memory and hence no locally stored operating system. Instead, the device fetches this from a provisioning server every time it is switched on. There are two reasons for this: to give firms greater flexibility in the platforms they wish to use; and to cut management overheads, since there is nothing on the device that might need updating anymore.

“With Zero Client, you no longer have to manage the devices, but an OS image on the server instead,” said Jeff McNaught, chief marketing officer at Wyse. The image sent to the device can vary depending on the user profile, he added, so that one user might get a different operating system and application set to the next user that logs in from the same terminal.

Zero Client also gives firms the ability to use thin clients without committing to a server-based strategy, since the provisioning server can deploy a full-blown version of Windows as easily as a thin client version. The Wyse device can thus operate as a terminal or as a diskless PC, depending on whether it boots into XP Embedded (XPe) or XP Professional.

This does very cool, Wyse appear to have launched a set of initiatives to eliminate the perceived barriers to entry of the thin clients.

Thin client technology can be a great way of providing the desktop functionality the majority of your user-base needs whilst allowing you to reduce your hardware support and associated energy costs, the main advantage though is by centralizing the desktop function, we abstract ourselves from the typical desktop support issues which has to be a business enabler – anyone got the drivers for a Matrox card?

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