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Go here to try out Web Versions of Microsoft Excel, Word and Powerpoint via a Web-enabled Metframe server.

Citrix haven't fully disabled the Visual Basic part of these apps so, yes, you can get a command prompt up... but I think they've disabled most network tools.

I use a number of different 'thin client' type protocols on the networks I administer - X is a good protocol, but not very 'thin'. It doesn't work very well over long distances. On our Lan we have a number of X-terms that connect to DGUX servers, all of which can open a windows NT session on a box running Windows NT Terminal Server with Citrix Metaframe(sure, it's Windows, but get over it - users want Windows/Office). Additionally, we have PCs, Macs, and NCD ThinStar WinCE terminals. All can run the same applications, in many cases much faster than they could on their own machine. Plus, it really saves you money in the long run, because most users don't really use all the power a regular PC can offer, except in brief bursts. Maybe 10K for a huge server, and then any piece of crap can connect to it - instead of spending 1K for every person in the office.

Although WTS is a bitch to configure, once it's there, it works really nicely. Citrix ICA is an excellent protocol - it has clients for windows, mac, linux, solaris, java, etc, and can even be used over a modem, with encryption, with acceptable speed. People with the terminals as clients are easy to take care of. They won't screw up their machines, and if something goes wrong with it, we just pop in a new one and they're back online. Of course, Windows Terminal Server is pretty obscure at the moment, Windows 2000 will support terminal serving capabilities as well.

If you want multiplatform thin client capability, the names you need to know are NCD, Citrix, and Microsoft. VNC is an open-source alternative that works fairly well(although it is far slower than citrix), and supports almost every known platform. Although it has no built-in encryption, it can be tunneled through ssh relatively simply. It has fewer requirements than X, and shows good promise for the future. By the way, they needs more good developers - go to the site.


-lx

I have used and really like Citrix thin client solution. Their Metaframe product works extremely well. Even better, they have been slipping out from Macroshaft's leash lately and announced they are working on Unix (Linux) versions of the Metaframe product. I think you should give them serious consideration.