HP Introduces Transmeta Thin Clients

prostoalex writes "HP will announce the T5500 and T5300 thin clients on Monday at the TechEX show in New York City, which use the 733-MHz and 533-MHz versions of Transmeta's TM5800 CPU. Prices range from $599 to $629."

Comments

PC vs thin client

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, I can buy a regular PC for less... what gives?

Re:PC vs thin client

[FreedomOfSpea-MMNnnf]

Linus took a powder on Transmeta a few months back unless I heard wrong.

Re:PC vs thin client

[Stonent1]

And add in Etherboot and you've got a thin client!

Re:PC vs thin client

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone Afford This?

Uh

[NightSpots]

733 MHz, and I'm supposed to celebrate?

Transmeta missed the boat. Even in thin clients, they're underpowered. At 733 MHz, even low IPC won't help.

Transmeta was a good company, but they didn't get their product to market in time.

Re:Uh

[NightSpots]

And of course I meant CPI (cycles per instruction) instead of IPC.

Long night.

Re:Uh

[cgranade]

Clockrates of different processors don't directly compare. I mean, the Dreamcast had a 200MHz processor, and went faster than PCs for several years. My Athlon XP 1.8GHz is faster than my P4 2GHz. The P3 1GHz was faster than the P4 1.4GHz. So, 733MHz may be a lot more than you think. Besides, the only reason that seems underpowered is due to bloatware. If it were Linux installed...

Re:Uh

[smatt-man]

For a thin client 733 MHz is almost over powered. Remember, all it has to do is run Win CE or embeded Linux. The keyword being thin which means the server does the processing.

Re:Uh

[VEGETA_GT]

I disagree
Remember they came out with their original processors when the race to hit 1ghz was still on the go. So they where in the right MHz area then. Though they have not done much to keep up since then. What happened tot hem is they lost their contract with IBM, Sony did not make many laptops and there processors never got really well pushed in the mobile computing market as they should have been. It is a great idea of a chip, but things just never went right for them.

Re:Uh

[pVoid]

You also meant high IPC/CPI... "Even high CPI won't count"...

long night indeed.

Re:Uh

[pVoid]

hmmm... I meant "Even high IPC won't count"... but you were right, it translates to "even low CPI won't count".

The beauty of ratios

Re:Uh

[LoudMusic]

I have a slew of 733mhz computers with 128MB at the office that run Windows 2000 extremely well. My friends and I decided a while back that 600mhz is about all you need with any modern operating system. Beyond that you're just gaming.

It's a thin client, man. Web, email, word processing, maybe play some tunes or desktop games.

Re:Uh

[oolon]

My Xvid encoding says otherwise! If I wanna turn all the features on I geta whooping 3 frames a second (cos its 2 pass thats really 1.5 frames a second) out of my 2.4Ghz PIV system. There is still some place for processor improvement in my book. Even decoding xvid would strugle on a 733, my Sony C1 picturebook can't handle decoding.

James

Re:Uh

[diz]

Uh, maybe you didn't notice that the article said that the 1GHz models have already been on the market for a while and they were releasing slower models. One would expect that these models would be cheaper than the TM5700 clients that are 1GHz and *already on the market* for some time.

With the amount of effort I see people put into making ultra quiet computers, you'd think something like this might actually do well. I'm tired of my own office sounding like a wind tunnel, and I've considered many times moving the white box machines (yes, they're cheap but loud) into a machine room and using something fanless as a remote desktop in my office.

Re:Uh

[statichead]

For the price take a pc and turn it into a thin client. It is the deployment and software that makes it slim.

Re:Uh

[EnderWiggnz]

because thin clients are supposed to be used for video decoding.

cha, right.

Re:Uh

[dabadab]

"Even decoding xvid would strugle on a 733"

My 500MHz Celeron plays anything without getting anywhere near 100% CPU load. I guess it's mostly a matter of the video card - my Matrox G400 handles some of the stuff (scaling, maybe colorspace conversion).
And of course you DON'T do Xvid encoding on a thin client just as much as you don't do it on an X terminal (what a thin client basically is)

Re:Uh

[smatt-man]

It's also the hardware, and the management that makes it slim. If a company buys 500 thin clients, they can manage the hardware from a single workstation. There are less parts to 'go wrong' with a thin client, plus less power consumption. I used to work at a place that used them, it took 3 minutes to go from nothing on someone's desk, to a thin client setup and connected to the Terminal Server. Of course, we bought $300 thin clients, which made it all the better.

Re:Uh

[lavalyn]

Silly silly...

"all the features" would mean you're turning on stuff that are totally useless or aren't worth the effort to calculate out... 10% time for 0.1% improvement in average quantizer just isn't worth it for most people. And decoding XviD takes about 500mhz (Celeron).

Don't blame the software or the hardware for what is clearly PEBKAC.

Re:Uh

[glenrm]

"Transmeta was a good company, but they didn't get their product to market in time." Transmeta is still in biz, they cause Intel to develop the Pentium M, and the have a new CPU [transmeta.com] in the works.

Re:Uh

[quakeroatz]

Parent is pure Troll.

1. Thin client apps are not designed to be client-cpu intensive, that's why they're using thin clients! Hello?

2. Comparing a Crusoe clock speeds to Intel/AMD (which is also asinine) is worse than comparing a G5 to a P4.

3. 99% of your mainstream thin client apps will BLAZE with this Crusoe chip. It's no secret to /.ers that you can run word proc., email, spreadsheets, with much less than 733 mhz. 333 celeron anyone?

4. Judging Transmeta dead without regard for the upcoming Efficeon is not only an ignorant remark, but it is in direct opposition to many major analyst forecasts which see TMTA hitting 2.50 in the next year.

Are you even aware of the Efficeon?

Re:Uh

[Hoser McMoose]

Very true, at 733MHz, the Transmeta chips they are using are NO WHERE CLOSE to being as fast as a PIII or Athlon of the same clock speed. In reality, the performance of these chips have a tough time matching 400MHz Celeron processors, let alone anything that has been sold by Intel or AMD in the last 3 years.

For a thin client though, this might be enough computing power. A thin client really doesn't do a heck of a lot other than display simple graphics. Power consumption (and therefore heat produced) is also quite low, though a ULV mobile Celeron would offer comperable power consumption. The real reason why HP went with these chips is because they are cheap. I have to wonder why they didn't go for a VIA C3 instead though. Similar power consumption, low cost and much more widely available/better supported chipsets.

Re:Uh

[Delirium Tremens]

...many major analyst forecasts which see TMTA hitting 2.50 in the next year.

Well, with this announcement, this might even happen today:
TMTA $2.39 +0.48 +25.13% 12,305,832

Re:Uh

[sketerpot]

I don't get it... what does inter-process communication have to do with this, other than in discussions of lag when you're using these as thin clients? ;-)

Re:Uh

[sketerpot]

And a 230 Mhz K6 can't run super nintendo games as quickly as the original console, despite having a much higher clock speed. The trick: the SNES had lots of hardware acceleration. And how does this apply to the discussion? It doesn't. Ladies and gentleman I am not making any sense. Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly little monkey.

Re:Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

As the parent post confirmed, he meant CPI, not IPC. Which means Cycles Per Instruction.

Thing is, even though he spelt it wrong the first time, I understood it Instructions Per Cycle in the context.

You're right, there's nothing to get: it has nothing to do with Inter-Process Comm.

-pVoid

Re:Uh

[4of12]

IIRC, Transmeta chip performance was something that depended on its learning how to optimize for a specific task.

Existing benchmarks tended to emphasize how fast each of several tasks were accomplished once.

So Transmeta's offerings tend to look worse than they might be in use, day to day.

Re:Uh

[timeOday]

In practice this argument can only take you so far! (Probably why your parent said "even low IPC won't help", though I think he meant HIGH IPC=instructions per cycle).

And since a P3-700(M) is roughly twice as fast as a Crusoe 800, raising the IPC argument is just grasping at straws. (Check out the Fujitsu B-series 2562 vs. the Lifebook P2110 on that link).

Re:Uh

[ilctoh]

733MHz is plenty of power for a thin client. With transmeta chips, they're probably really quiet and energy efficient. What possible use could you have for anything more than 733MHz in a thin client? A whole bunch of 586's I had laying around coupled with LTSP on a capable server means that I can now have 5 users accessing the same machine simultaniously. Each client is a 120MHz machine with 32-64MB of RAM, and the users are amazed that this setup works faster than their 2.4GHz P4 WinXP setup at home.

Re:Uh

[FireballFreddy]

Oh no! The Chewbacca defense! *head explodes*

Re:Uh

[Wolfrider]

--Yeah, and back in the day I thought "This 286-12 is all I'll ever need!"

*BZZT!* Wrong...

--Faster processors are also good for compiling kernels and compressing things with gzip / bzip2.

Re:Uh

[Anonymous Coward]

You should try a coat of pink cashmere.

Re:Uh

[MuParadigm]

Um, on a thin client, compilation and compression are going to take place on the server, not the client. So having a faster processor on the client isn't going to help you at all.

$600 for a thin client?

[TWX]

When I can go buy a cheap $129 Via C3 motherboard with integrated everything, slimline case, memory, keyboard, mouse and flat panel for $500, why should I consider buying this thin client? Once you get away from the standard PC mentality, the costs do become increasingly important...

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[JanneM]

Basically, you shouldn't buy it.

A company might, however. These units cost about the same, or a little more, than a standard PC. Unlike a standard PC, however, they are geared from start to be slave units to a server. The user can mess up far less on one of these than they can on a PC, and any software updates and other administration happens on the server and not on the individual desktop units. A user can use any client anywhere; nobody's locked to one particular machine (and replacing a faulty unit is done in minutes, with no need to mess around with backup restoration). And, of course, if you need more capacity, you only need to upgrade the server backend, so these have a lifespan that is a good deal longer than a standard PC.

The decrease in administration hassles, the improved security, the decreased power consumption and the interchangeability all add up to a pretty compelling advantage compared to putting a full-blown PC on every desk - for a medium to large organization.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[CommandNotFound]

Also, this place has headless units for $350, and they are ready to run as LTSP clients.

Even then, you can get older PII class systems used for less than $50 USD, which would run just fine as X terms, with a decent monitor and GFX card.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[Trigun]

I am actually testing the VIA M10000 motherboard right now for a potential office rollout. Even with their 1GHz proc's, they will rival most machines for basic word processing, e-mail, and client-server apps. I can put one together for $500 cdn, and it will handle everthing the office wants it to, for 1/3 of the cost of a new PC.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[generic-man]

Tech support.

When something on your home-brew PC dies, you're responsible for diagnosing the problem and acquiring the parts necessary to fix it.

HP's tech support is notoriously bad (I've dealt with it in the past week) but at least you can hand off the problem to someone else. I don't think you'd appreciate being the only point of contact for 100 home-brew thin clients' tech support.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't answer the question. The original question was why go with the Transmeta-based thin clients when VIA-based thin clients are much cheaper.

Both alternatives offer all the thin-client benefits. One costs $200-$400 less.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[TWX]

Thing is though, any hardware can be a diskless terminal as long as it supports booting network or using a boot rom. So, that old weird PCI AMD 486 laying around can get a boot rom-based ethernet card, and voila! Xterm. Many new ethernet cards support it without needing the rom. It's a lot cheaper to continue with the "upgrade the backend" mentality if the front end user machine is even cheaper, and like another poster said, a PII can be found surplus for $50 in many cities, in quantity, with identical hardware configurations (where some ohter large company got rid of them because they were too old). The "Thin" machine, which is less of a machine, shouldn't cost exhorbiantly more unless it's industrial grade. Somehow I doubt that modern HP terminals will compete with the old 700RX's and Envizex I-series machines from the early '90s...

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[bahamat]

These units cost about the same, or a little more, than a standard PC. Unlike a standard PC, however, they are geared from start to be slave units to a server.

Actually, they cost about twice as much as a mini-atx. Don't forget that UNIX (and therefor Linux) was always designed to operate with dumb terminals (thin clients) connected to a centralized host. The X11 protocol was also designed to operate distributed among network connected hosts. It's not even that hard to set up.

Even Windows these days has "terminal services" that works (or at least thats the rumor) in a similar fasion.

Suddenly our wonderful reason for buying a thin client turns into "why am I doing this again?"

I'd love to have a thin client to stick in every room in the house running off of my Linux server. But at $600 a pop, it's just not worth it. Show me a thin client for $50-100. That's when I'll buy one (or 10).

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[tashanna]

This is Slashdot.Why would anyone look at the HP Website and check prices.

The 533 MHz = $349
The 733 MHz = $369

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[johnnyb]

However, the casing and the noise is a big deal. For example, if they manage to fit the whole thing in a completely silent chassis that is very, very small, you then buy yourself real estate - meaning that each user has more desk space - that's something not easily purchased.

In addition if they don't have fans, it both keeps the noise down to silent (which enhances productivity) and is one less thing to break and need replacing, making the # of movable parts 0.

Finally, if the Transmeta processor is energy efficient, you may be saving a whole, whole lot on electricity costs over its lifetime.

So, I don't know the numbers, but this could be very worth it's price. Just because anything _can_ be used as a terminal doesn't mean that these don't do the job better.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[spongman]

how to reduce fan noise and wasted desk-space? put your computer on the floor.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[johnnyb]

This is still space that could be used for something else, and it makes a bigger cable mess.

As for the fans, they still make noise and still break.

And the whole thing uses more electricity. We often forget this has a cost. I forget where, but I once saw the numbers as a result of consolidating a roomful of servers onto an IBM mainframe - they save $250,000 a year in electricity costs. Paying attention to these things can find your company money where it didn't think it had any.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[Wolfrider]

...You know, maybe it was a GOOD thing that Linus got out of Transmeta.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[MuParadigm]

"The decrease in administration hassles, the improved security, the decreased power consumption and the interchangeability all add up to a pretty compelling advantage compared to putting a full-blown PC on every desk - for a medium to large organization."

Not to mention the dereased costs for hardware support. No need to worry about the client screwing up their hard drive for instance, or having it fail.

And it's not just medium-large organizations that can save money on this kind of setup. Any company that's just starting up can save a lot of money by deploying a thin client solution with LTSP or even MS Terminal Server. The initial costs may be about the same, but the savings going forward from that point are quite significant. I had one small client (about 5 users) with this setup that at one point went nearly a year w/o needing support.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[MuParadigm]

As I said earlier in the thread, I recently spent about $650 a piece for some TC's. But they had more RAM than most TC's and were running Linux instead of WinCE or embedded XP. They also had sound, USB support, and significantly better graphics capability than the cheaper TC's. Even with Linux being free, it's still worth paying more to get it, since it gives me the flexibility to add LTSP to the mix later on.

Also, I imagine these units from HP will be running embedded XP, which probably pushes the price up significantly. ViaC3 clients with 32 MB RAM running WinCE are going to be much cheaper, but they are also not good for anything but running RDP sessions, and they usually have crappy graphics (8 bit color at 1024x768 resolution). The higher price for the HP unit probably reflects cost increases for more RAM, better graphics, sound, USB support, and embedded XP.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[MuParadigm]

True, you can set up a 486 with network boot and have a functional XTerminal.

However, and it's not necessarily as stupid as it sounds, some companies upgrade still functional equipment because the old equipment looks like shit after 3 or 4 years of getting beat up and collecting dust. It's like replacing a threadbare office chair.

And in that case a new TC is going to look a lot better than an ancient 486, P1, or P2 behomoth. And it will be cheaper than a *good* new PC.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[MuParadigm]

"Even Windows these days has "terminal services" that works (or at least thats the rumor) in a similar fasion."

It does work remarkably well. Especially in a small-midsized office environment. But it's expensive, not prohibitively, but more so than it should be. And for a large corporate environment, once you get over 150-200 users, you're probably better off adding Citrix to the mix, which adds even more costs.

Still, most companies are going to insist on MS, in part due to compatibility with their partners, in part because it's still easier and cheaper to find technical support personel or consultants that are familiar with MS as opposed to Linux. That's changing, but not quickly.

Re:$600 for a thin client?

[MuParadigm]

Because they're talking about the t5700 which starts at $599, comes with 192 MB RAM, ATI Rage XC 8MB RAM, 4 USB ports, and embedded XP.

You're right though. The article itself references the 733Mhz processor, which is the core of the t5500, starts at $369, and comes with: 32MB RAM, ATI Rage XC 8MB RAM, 4 USB ports, and WinCE.

I personally wouldn't recommend either, because given the way the market is going it would be stupid to lock in on the MS platform rather than getting a system that can run both X and MS Terminal Services.

However, if someone *is* determined to stick with Microsoft and doesn't want the option to upgrade to LTSP, then the t5500 is still going to be slow, due as much to its low RAM as the processor, and nowhere near as flexible as the t5700.

Whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

When are we going to see the Transmeta chips' unique code morphing technology used for something OTHER than just making unexceptional x86 clones with questionable benefit over just a normal intel/amd chip?

It's nice to see Transmeta doing SOMETHING, but it still looks like they've been running themselves in circles since the day they first used a product.

Never mind the PC world for a minute. Is Transmeta having ANY luck selling their chips for use in embedded systems?

Re:Whatever

[pope1]

Yes, they have had luck in embedded systems.

Checkout this company site.

They use transmeta chips in thier blade servers (multiple physical computers in one enclosure, for super high density computing).

Heres a direct link to the model 1000t, pretty neat design, and a company worth watching.

Re:Whatever

[drinkypoo]

A blade server is not an embedded system in the classic sense. Embedded hardware doesn't act like an ordinary computer, it behaves like an appliance. For instance, the ECU in your fuel-injected automobile is an embedded system.

Re:Whatever

[pope1]

I get the distinction. Other examples of "classic embedded systems" would be:

1.) portable mp3 players (rio, etc)
2.) DVR's (like tivo)
3.) CCU's (camera control units, like in the Axis
series of webcams)

Generally speaking embedded systems are of a single tasking nature, designed to help in the completion of that task.

The 1000t still deserves a mention though, as it is a very cool non-traditional way of clustering CPU's, and it happened to be transmeta CPU's, so it at least seemed topical.

Re:Whatever

[IM6100]

Hell, the keyboard/panel on your microwave oven is an embedded system. As is the microprocessor in your keyboard and the one in your mouse. Also the one in your hard drive.

Re:Whatever

[msgmonkey]

Because there is no point of emulating eg. the Motorola MPC range of embedded PowerPC or ARM chips because those chips have low power anyway and probably better performance at the clock speed.

The only thing going for them is the ability to use the PC platform for *some* embedded applications but even that is a moot point since you can target linux to lots of embedded processors. Unless I had something that needed MS Windows I would n't even bother looking at them, I would most probably be able to find a Motorola or ARM instruction set CPU that fits my requirements more closely.

In addition the vast majority of embedded CPU's are 8-bit because most of the time thats powerful enough.

Re:Whatever

[Hoser McMoose]

In a word, never.

The chips were designed from the ground-up to run x86. That's all that they were ever intended to run, the whole code-morphing thing was just a publicity stunt. Sure, it might be technically possible to run other architectures, but the performance would be even worse then the (already very poor) x86 performance and besides, other than /. readers, who would care? So what if the chip can run ARM code when you can buy dirt-cheap ARM processors that are faster and consume less power. Same for MIPS or PowerPC embedded chips.

Wrong pricing

[TrentC]

The submitter misread the article; those prices are for the TM5700, which HP already sells.

It says right at the bottom of the article that the prices for the new units have not been announced.

Jay (=

What's the deal.

[FreeLinux]

Thin clients are an excellent, though not new, idea. One of the big advantages of thin clients is cost. A thin client device that supports the RDP or Citrix ICA protocols can be had for just a couple of hundred dollars but, if you want X Term support the cost is through the roof. I want to know why the X capable clients cost so much more than the Winterm clients. I can't see any real justification for this.

Re:What's the deal.

[neo8750]

I want to know why the X capable clients cost so much more than the Winterm clients.

This is what we in the industry like to call the X factor.

Re:What's the deal.

[CapeBretonBarbarian]

if you want X Term support the cost is through the roof. I want to know why the X capable clients cost so much more than the Winterm clients.

Is the cost really through the roof? We use SunRay's in a classroom lab and in several simulators for X applications. The cost per unit is quite affordable, even taking into account the SunRay server. We also run windows apps on them using Citrix ICA. The Sunrays themselves were cheap - the Citrix side of things was the expensive component, far more than the cost of the SunRays or the SunRay server, and you don't need Citrix for the X side of things.

Re:What's the deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

>if you want X Term support the cost is
>through the roof

Guess I will have to find the people who threw
out all the pentium I systems that I use and
give them some money.

Thin client X-terminals are inexpensive.
Free even.

Re:What's the deal.

[MuParadigm]

"I want to know why the X capable clients cost so much more than the Winterm clients."

They don't. The HP t5700 starts at $599. A similarly configured Wyse 5540XL costs about $629, runs SuSE Linux 7.x, which makes it X compatible, and also has RDP and ICA clients.

In other words, it's much more flexible than the HP unit, costs about the same, and runs X.

Specs and Diagrams here:

[watanabe]

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/1174 6_ca/11746_ca.PDF

The specs look like this is aimed at a corporate market? Strange since a whitebox computer would be cheaper. I suppose power consumption, etc. are all important. The T5500 comes with 128mb of RAM, and the 733mhz Crusoe 5800 processor, runs Windows CE and IE 6, and supports Citrix, etc.

I still think I'd prefer a whitebox with no hard drive running LTSP.

Re:Specs and Diagrams here:

[Anonymous Coward]

direct link

When will they give up?

[jbellis]

It's nice to see transmeta getting some press but how many times do we have to try thin clients before realizing they peaked in the early 90s and probably aren't coming back?

Most recently, the sun ray is about half the price, has cool take-your-session-anywhere technology, and last I heard isn't selling like hotcakes. So either HP knows something I don't or this is just more evidence of clueless management...

Re:When will they give up?

[Lxy]

I am by no means an industry analyst, but here's my observations.

We started off here at work with a System 36 and dumb terminals at everyone's desk. Everyone got their work done, and aside from hardware problems, there was no need to get up and walk to somone's desk. If anyone had problems, it was all centralized. All my work was done from my desk.

We then moved off dumb terminals and replaced everything with PCs. Trips to people's desk are frequent (probably 20 a day) and the rest of the time is spent building replacement PCs. Users store their own data, and if their drive crashes without a backup, they're SOL. How do you get a user to backup their data on a regular basis? Got me.

Now we start looking at server based solutions like Citrix and $300 Wyse terminals on the desk. Hmm.. minimized trips to the desk, all management centralized, hey, didn't we used to have that?

It looks to me like we have a trend. We got off the diskless/helpless workstations in favor of robust, useful boxes. Now we're heading back that helpless box stage and centralize our configuration, installation, and data. I predict that diskless will always be, and in fact will be favorable in reduced admin costs. because of that I welcome a market that is competitive at the thin client level.

Re:When will they give up?

[NDPTAL85]

You are telling me you can't setup some form of a network imaging backup system? You know a large storage area network that would image the user's HD'd on a regular basis?

Re:When will they give up?

[drinkypoo]

PCs killed the thin client because they were cheap and powerful. A handful of PCs had way more processing power than a mainframe, cost far less, and required less special infrastructure. Now, machines that do what a mainframe did then, even adjusting for increased volumes of data, are once again priced into the realm of reason, so it makes sense to use them again. It's not that mainframes didn't make sense, it's that they priced themselves into obscurity. These days you can hook up multiple terabytes of storage to a desktop box, if that's what you're into, and call it a server; Build two of them and you can implement clustering with failover. Then you can knock your administration costs down to just about nothing using thin clients. Sounds like a plan with no drawbacks to me...

Re:When will they give up?

[WNight]

I think it has to do with CPU speeds vs wire speeds.

LAN networking stayed fairly steady at 1-10mbps shared until 100mbps Ethernet took off a few years ago. Easily fast enough to update text screens and to do simple GUIs. And back then it was cheaper to buy a big CPU instead of a desktop big enough to do the heavy duty stuff you have to allow for but which isn't the norm.

But then wire speed stayed at 10mbps for a while and CPUs got cheaper while GUIs which needed this power got more common. Now it's harder to run thin clients because they demand much larger updates and these new 386 and 486 CPUs aren't really that expensive, and they're 50(!) times faster than computers from a few years ago. Not to mention, hard drives made local storage a reasonable alternative.

But now you've got 100mbps and 1000mbps switched ethernet, delivering ten or one hundred times the speed and it becomes practical to start sending a desktop over the net again, or 100MB boot images and programs.

The equation has also changed, now 2.5Ghz Athlon CPUs are 80USD, they give them away in crackerjack boxes. While there is never 'fast enough', there is 'fast enough for business apps' and hardware is ahead of the curve. Networking is fast, cheap, and getting faster and cheaper every year. The cost is now people. Administration, the workplace, etc. Keeping you at your desk and letting you maintain apps that everyone uses instead of travelling to maintain an app only one person uses saves the company enough money to probably buy a thin client every week.

Re:When will they give up?

[Lxy]

I can rattle off a list about ways of going about it. The question is, how the hell do I backup 500 PCs in an efficient manner on a regular basis? I agree that there are some cool techniques (including the one you mentioned) but getting a setup that works well would take far more time than our current method. Not to mention that doesn't solve the original problem, user issues and hardware upgrade.

Oh, and I should also mention that something like telling users to save their data on the server makes sense, but there are folks above me that have fundamental issues with this.

Re:When will they give up?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sun ray is only about half the price if you don't buy a keyboard with it (which isn't an option, they force it on you), don't buy a client license for it, don't buy server software, and don't buy solaris, which is required.

Re:When will they give up?

[LWATCDR]

I understand your point. However I would like to point out another option. Why not just diskless clients? A mini-ITX board has enough power to run most office style applications. Just have it boot into Linux of if you must Windows across the network. Have all user data stored on the network. You have your centalized backup. For the helpdesk just install VNC.

Re:When will they give up?

[Kjella]

It looks to me like we have a trend. We got off the diskless/helpless workstations in favor of robust, useful boxes. Now we're heading back that helpless box stage and centralize our configuration, installation, and data. I predict that diskless will always be, and in fact will be favorable in reduced admin costs. because of that I welcome a market that is competitive at the thin client level.

Except that the "terminals" today have more power than the mainframe of back then. Yes, they're centralizing storage, but this time the computing power is still decentralized (which was primarily the reason to move from terminals to PCs in the first place.

Kjella

Re:When will they give up?

[IM6100]

We started off here at work with a System 36 and dumb terminals at everyone's desk. Everyone got their work done, and aside from hardware problems, there was no need to get up and walk to somone's desk. If anyone had problems, it was all centralized.

I remember those days, too.

It was sort of cool when every secretary, manager, and clerk in the company would all lose their work simultaneously because a bug in the software took the whole system down.

For certain values of 'cool' only, of course.

Re:When will they give up?

[mystran]

In addition I predict, that in a decade or so, we'll be moving back to "robust, useful boxes" and then in another decade back to dummy terminals.

It's kinda like "client/server", then "decentralized" then "client/server" then "decentralized" then "client/server" etc..

History is good at repeating transitions between different computing paradigms and back..

Re:When will they give up?

[abirdman]

This is probably offtopic, but I suggest you tell the management-type "folks above you" that "have fundamental issues" with users saving their data onto servers instead of locally that the data belongs to the company! It's not a complicated idea. Simple as that. Anyone who saves anything but temp data to their local drive is risking the company's data, and its value.

Personally, I hate the whole exercise, but if the data has value, it belongs to the company, and if it's stored on a local hard drive it's vulnerable to local failure.

Also, my experience is that the best backup solutions, from the point of view of speed, cost effectiveness, and completeness, are invariably based on the server. It's not that hard to teach users to save their work to the network instead of to their local hard drive. Part of the reason corporations like thin clients is because of this.

Re:When will they give up?

[MuParadigm]

I know "me too" posts are frowned upon, but i just have to say:

Exactly.

Just thought you'd like to know that there are others here who agree with you.

Re:When will they give up?

[MuParadigm]

Actually, the primary reason for moving to decentralized was because it was cheaper and more robust.

That equation has now changed. It's cheaper to run a centralized model once again. And robustness has increased in the centralized model, but decreased in the decentralized model due to internet access, in particular "all the cool things" end users now want to download and install on their PC's.

People can talk about securing the workstations better, but the truth is that it's just easier to secure thin clients.

This is coming from someone who has to support both models for different clients. I always recommend thin clients now for companies just starting up. Small companies that already have an infrastructure in place want to get an ROI on their investment first, so you have to find ways make their PC infrastructure more flexible, then slowly introduce the technology.

4) Profit!

Go Transmeta!

[pope1]

Its always great to see an underdog/specialty chip maker gain some market share, even if its in the mostly-corporate-lan-dominated arena of Thin-Clients.

At least Sun Micro's "Sun Ray" system will get some much needed competition out of this.

We use Sun Ray's here at work, and while they do thier job pretty admirably, they do have some quirky lock-up issues we haven't been able to resolve.

Re:Go Transmeta!

[EnderWiggnz]

the sun-ray's have had plenty of competition:

IBM, HP, Neoware, WYse, and a gaggle of other also rans are all playing the thin client market.

Re:Go Transmeta!

[Phoebus0]

Check which version of Sun Ray software you are using. If you are using anything less that 2.0, you should upgrade. If you are running 2.0, they (finally!) released a group of patches for srss 2.0. I have seen a lot of the lockup issues with the patch go away.

Re:Go Transmeta!

[pope1]

Thanks for the tip, i'll check with unix systems and see what version we are at.

Price is incorrect

[Llurien]

The article actually says that the 5700 model which was allready sold by HP for some time has a price range of $599 to $629. The 5700 model uses the 1GHz version of the TM5800. The new thing is that models based on the lower speed processors are introduced, but no prices are known about those yet. I may be kicking in open doors here, but they probably will be lower.

Re:Price is incorrect

[Shabazz]

You're right. Go here: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/thinclients/ind ex_t5000.html
The prices for the slower models are $349 (533mhz) -$399 (733mhz).

In Other News...

[I8TheWorm]

GM has announced a smaller, harder to drive vehicle than the small-mid sized cars. It has less power and room as well. It will sell, however, for slightly higher than other vehicles, as it will be cool to own, given a very high geek rating.

Re:In Other News...

[statichead]

My thoughts exactly, may as well buy a dell for $399. Who would have thought that semi-dumb terminals would sell for more than a smart pc(as long as its running linux;-)

Re:In Other News...

[I8TheWorm]

Got me. I had flashbacks to having a dumb terminal sitting next to my CP/M machine at home. It had a whopping 1200 baud modem, while my pc had only 300 Hayes.

It's amazing to me that companies will sell lesser technology for a higher $$ like that. What's more amazing is some yahoo at a large company will convince their manager that they'll need to purchase 1000 of these and distribute them among the company.

Re:In Other News...

[EnderWiggnz]

but you need far more administration man-power to take care of those cheaper boxen.

initial cost is a small portion of the TCO of a desktop computer.

Re:In Other News...

[jonathan_ingram]

Laugh all you want, it does happen in the car market. See Volkswagon Beetle vs. Volkswagon Golf.

Re:In Other News...

[I8TheWorm]

Haha! You couldn't have hit the nail on the head any harder with that one!

Re:In Other News...

[twistedcubic]

It may be worth it if they take up less space. PCs usually have a big box plus big monitor. The dumb terminal I used for six years in school was a one piece thing (plus keyboard) that took up about a much space as a 19" LCD monitor.

Re:In Other News...

[I8TheWorm]

Most of the large distributors make a small form factor pc that's about the size of most monitor bases.

Perhaps for console apps

[heironymouscoward]

I have a Transmeta 533 in the form of a Sonic Blue frontpath surfpad.

It is a wonderful toy, but too slow for human consumption, modern software just craaawls, and it only works as a surfpad via a thin and tuned Netscape 4.7. OOo is painfully slow. MP3 playback worked OK.

The only use I can see for this kind of device, and I admit that it'd be enough for me, is for remote ssh administration of my servers with some music rocking in the headset.

ssh runs just dandy on a 533 Mhz Crusoe. Anything with pretty pictures does _not_.

Re:Perhaps for console apps

[BenjyD]

Hence the fact that it's a thin client. In other words, virtually none of the processing (apart from some basic drawing to the screen functions) is done locally. It's all done on some big server the user never has to see.

Re:Perhaps for console apps

[mindriot]

Hm, depends on what you want to do I guess. I used to run Mozilla and OOo and listen to mp3s/oggs on my AMD K6/233 just fine. For most work tasks, including office-type work, programming, and general internet tasks, that was enough power - and 533 MHz should be too. The only tasks requiring a >1GHz computer are modern games, video editing, and maybe 3D software. As a system for most daily work (unless you do lots of multimedia), anything from 200 to 1000 MHz serves just fine. My 1533 MHz desktop sits idle most of the time unless I play an occasional game. And I could give a shit about OOo or Mozilla taking 20 instead of 5 seconds to start up. Who cares?

Re:Perhaps for console apps

[heironymouscoward]

True, 533Mhz should be enough, but somehow it's not, in the Crusoe version. Seriously: OOo just crawls so painfully it's unbearable, Mozilla takes 40 seconds to load (20 for the stripped-down Netscape 4.7), it's like working in treacle.

Re:Perhaps for console apps

[random_static]

200MHz is too slow for daily work. 250MHz P5/MMX is what i'm stuck with (overclocked 233), and OOo is painfully slow. not just to start up, but to use. mozilla runs decent once it's up, but starting it up is so horrendously slow i use galeon instead. it's only moderately annoying to wait for. evolution starts up not much quicker than moz does; thank ghods it runs pretty snappy for most (but not all) regular tasks, or i'd have to go back to using mutt for all my mail.

my desktop's so damn slow, i'm actually looking forward to upgrading to gnome 2.4, because everybody keeps saying the thing's faster than 2.0 - if they're wrong about that, i'm gonna be SOL before long.

Pictures of T5500 and T5300

[ShadeARG]

Pictures of the T5500 and T5300. (German text)

Re:Pictures of T5500 and T5300

[DanoTime]

Thanks for the link... at least it's something. The press release basically says nothing, and as it's been said before, why not get a PC? It's good news for Transmeta to grab someone as large as HP - but I worry that this is a failed business model and they're just behind the times.

Re:Pictures of T5500 and T5300

[andrewski]

They look like robot penises.

Fat Client For Same Price

[SlipJig]

You can get an NEC Powermate Eco, which also uses the Crusoe chip, for the same price ($600-650), with 256 MB RAM and a 20GB hard drive. Oh, and a 15" LCD monitor in a compact design.

Re:Fat Client For Same Price

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people keep missing the point:

1. Administration, administration, administration. There is no hard drive to fail at the user's machine, it's all in a back room somewhere. User can't install his MP3s or pornos, and make the company liable to a lawsuit.

2. This is aimed at BUSINESSES not the slashdot crows.. er.. crowd. Many places only run one application, they don't need a bulky fat client.

3. an internet machine done RIGHT would be great. Most casual users (read: my mom) may not care to fiddle with a fat client. They may just want to press a button, have it connect to an ISP and boot from the ISPs server. Everything is patched and up to date! It would have to be done intelligently (e.g. only download the parts of the image that actually changed, etc)

4. This is just one part of the puzzle. HP will be announcing additional parts of the puzzle soon.

Larry Ellison failed twice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Larry Ellison has tried to sell thin clients and failed. TWICE. Why does Carly think this will work?

1: Take a failed business model.
2: ???
3: Profit

Re:Larry Ellison failed twice.

[geekoid]

teo reasons:
1) times are tight, and when looking at cost savings, thin clients are really the way to go.
CHeaper to admin, cheaper to run, cheaper to replace on of these thena PC.
Bear in mind these are overall costs. sure, you might be able ti get a PC for the same cost, but how much are you going to spend in man hours installing and updating software.

2) easier to keep up to date when the next virus hits.

Larry's timing was horrible.

Re:Larry Ellison failed twice.

[Eric Wasgatt]

There's a difference between a technology which was not successfully rolled out, and a failed business model. HP has a services business which is well positioned to utilize this technology. Given HP's portfolio, and target markets, this could make a lot of sense.

Re:Larry Ellison failed twice.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy it. The second time Larry tried to
sell these things, he used all of your agruments.
It has been less then six months since Oracle closed the thin client division. I don't think
things have changed that much since the,

Re:Larry Ellison failed twice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Larry wasn't just marketing thin clients to the masses. He had a complete division set up around a business model to front end all of Oracles' software. That's not just DB. This includes products like Oracle Applications. He too has a whole "Business Services" market that he was trying to push these on.

Re:Larry Ellison failed twice.

[TheCrazyFinn]

Yeah, but when you buy Corporate hardware, you don't go to Oracle. You go to Sun, HP or Compaq.

You don't buy Hardware from a DB company or DB software from a Hardware company (Unless it's IBM, which does everything)

Re:Larry Ellison failed twice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't Larry marketing them as PC-alternatives for Home Users who were afraid of Windows rather than a true diskless workstation?

- DRFSR

specs? pictures?

[stonebeat.org]

here are the specs and a drawing: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/1164 3_ca/11643_ca.HTML

no pictures? anyone has links to the pictures?

Or an X-Box, surely?

[Channard]

Which also runs at 733Mhz and can be made to run Linux, to act as a web server and a myriad of other apps. Granted, it's not a 'thin' client so much as a 'who's eaten all the pies' client, in physical size at least. But it's still quite compact compared to tower PCs. Plus MS supposedly loses money on each box sold which should surely encourage some enterprising admin would set up an X-Box powered office.

Re:Or an X-Box, surely?

[Phosphor3k]

750$ will get you a p4 2.53ghz, 512mb ram, cdrw, and 40gb HD all in a business SFF chasis, from Compaq-HP. Well, its actuall a Compaq designed PC, but it has the HP logo on it.

Re:Or an X-Box, surely?

[gmack]

It is a lot of work to mod each Xbox. The more large an office I run the more buying complete machiens make sense from a staffing perspective. Modding X-box would run counter to the whole thin client idea since the whole point of a thin client is to reduce admin work. Not to mention the fact that you get no warranty and X-Box will put out a lot more heat than either the crusoe or often used Geodes will.

A good thin client on the other hand will have no moving parts(no fans, no hds) and be setup out of the box to work as a thin client.

If you want cheap, the Neoware Capio thin clients aren't much more than an X-box. Plus you get a tiney unubstrsive white box instead of an ugly black box with bright green logos on the front.

Re:Or an X-Box, surely?

[twistedcubic]

But a p4 2.53 GHz requires a CPU fan that's loud as hell. The Trasmeta probably doesn't. However, your point is made-- you can assemble something equivalent for half the cost.

Re:Or an X-Box, surely?

[Phosphor3k]

Loud as hell? not so. There are two fans in it, the cpu fan and the chasis fan. The chasis fan is near silent and the p4 fan make a low hum. Not even a whine. My GF FX has a louder fan than the stock p4 fans.

Re:Or an X-Box, surely?

[drinkypoo]

You can now put linux on an Xbox without making any hardware modifications using mechassault or something. Hence your warranty will not be voided. The REAL problem with this is that the Xbox does not support VGA out, so unless you're going to buy each station a HD television, it's not going to be good for much, and even if you do the resolution will be woefully inadequate.

Re:Or an X-Box, surely?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeh, thats the major factor in a decision to implement a thin cliebnt solution.

noise.

absolutely nothing to do with the drastic reductions in IT personnel budget.

Thin Client Prices

[Brian Blessed]

When I was setting up my LTSP-style arrangement at home, I shopped around a bit for clients. I already had an old Javastation Krups, but found it much to slow for heavy use.

These thin clients are $599 to about $629, similar to the prices I found but I can't understand why companies make them so expensive. I decided to build my own using VIA mini-ITX boards for less than $300.

It amazes me when companies fail to analyze why previous thin client computing initiatives haven't caught on, and put out thin clients that cost the same as a full desktop PC. My local bank (Barclay's) have replaced old X Terminals with Dell desktop PCs (P4s!) running Exceed, and I assume they chose this based on price.

- Brian

Re:Thin Client Prices

[Shimbo]

My local bank (Barclay's) have replaced old X Terminals with Dell desktop PCs (P4s!) running Exceed, and I assume they chose this based on price.

It's true that thin clients often seem overpriced for what they are, however, the working lifetime of them tends to be much more than your average PC. Longevity doesn't seem to count for much when buying.

We have a few Exceed PCs used almost entirely as X-terminals but they are running on NT. Since NT is no longer supported, and they don't look like they are worth upgrading, they will probably have to be replaced.

Re:Thin Client Prices

[raelimperialaerosolk]

We went down this road a couple of years ago. The available xterminals were slow and didn't give us the flexability we wanted and they were too much $$$.

Ended up creating our own linux based X-terminals from scratch. A really bright summer student did the whole thing in about 6 weeks.

Our linux xterminals boast: local ICA clients (for citrix connectivity), full screen shadowing, access to local floppy/cd/usb key via citrix, 24 bit color, media player, plus a lot of other neat bells and whistles.

The users don't even know they're running linux...they log on to our servers just like our old NCD terminals.

The upside is that these are on Dell Gx270's, which is the same platform I use for desktop PC's (so, I have a common stock of spares). The downside is that it is a spinning disk that could go bad.

The best part is the cost. With a 19" flat panel I get each system for about $1400. Sure, I could do it for a *LOT* less, but then I wouldn't have a common hardware base. I would say that this could be done with $400-$500 PC's which beats the HP price.

Re:Thin Client Prices

[evilviper]

I decided to build my own using VIA mini-ITX boards for less than $300.

And I'm sure the time spent on repairing PC hardware, the electricity saved, etc., would be more than worth the added cost.

My local bank (Barclay's) have replaced old X Terminals with Dell desktop PCs (P4s!) running Exceed, and I assume they chose this based on price.

A local high-school replaced Macs with PCs running Windows. I assume they did this because Mac OS is horrible, and Windows is a wonderful operating system.

Just goes to show you, assumptions are crap.

Re:Thin Client Prices

[Brian Blessed]

And I'm sure the time spent on repairing PC hardware, the electricity saved, etc., would be more than worth the added cost.

They are still too expensive because the manufacturers get bulk discounts. There is no need for thin clients to cost more than Pentium 4 desktop PCs with HDD+DVD+Floppy drives, gobs of RAM and a 3D accelerator.,

A local high-school replaced Macs with PCs running Windows. I assume they did this because Mac OS is horrible, and Windows is a wonderful operating system.

Well, they probably also did that because of the price (or ignorance). In my example, the bank were not ignorant of proprietary thin clients and would have chosen on cost considerations, although those could have been long-term (i.e. maintainability of open vs. proprietary hardware).

- Brian

Re:Thin Client Prices

[MuParadigm]

I'm doing it with Wyse 5440XL's and Dell 19" LCD's. Each part is a little less than $650, so the cost for each workstation is about $1250.

Sure, we could have done it for less, but the company owner likes the new LCD's and she decided that she was getting her savings on support costs, so a one-time initial investment to get good video, plus extra RAM and Linux support, was a marginal extra cost she was willing to spring for.

IOW, and this is directed at the other readers -- not the parent poster, who clearly gets this point already, she chose thin clients not because the hardware costs were cheaper, but so she could get more of what she needs at the same price, and lower support costs going forward.

Re:Thin Client Prices

[MuParadigm]

"They are still too expensive because the manufacturers get bulk discounts. There is no need for thin clients to cost more than Pentium 4 desktop PCs with HDD+DVD+Floppy drives, gobs of RAM and a 3D accelerator."

Christ, tell me where you're getting your PC's. As far as I know, a PC configured as you've described usually costs about 2-3 grand. I can price out a system pretty close to that configuration (with some marginal compromises) down to about $1000, but that's still 65% more expensive than the thin client. And all the client gets for that is functionality they don't need, functionality the users will use to waste time screwing around on the job, and higher support costs.

Re:Thin Client Prices

[Brian Blessed]

Over at Dell:
http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/offers/specials_3x_s pecial61.htm

Granted it depends on your definition of gobs of RAM, but it does have a P4 2.2Ghz, 256MB DDR RAM,and Integrated Intel(R) 3D Extreme Graphics. It costs $599. And that includes a 15inch TFT.

Anyway, even if you pay more for your desktop PCs I think you'll agree that thin client boxes needn't cost $600.

- Brian.

Re:Thin Client Prices

[MuParadigm]

Oh, sure, I agree that they needn't cost as much, but the good TC's probably come close.

The only major differences between a good TC and a low-end PC should be that the TC has a lower-end processor with better power management, and Flash RAM for the OS instead of a hard drive. CDR optional, but probably not necessary for most TC's.

Live CD is the thin client solution for real geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

El Cheapo MB/CPU/VGA $100
500 megs of RAM 50
CD Drive 30
Oh, and a net card if your board doesn't have one.
You don't need anything more than that. If you haven't used Knoppix 3.2, the interface is damn peppy even off the CD.

Too Expensive

[codepunk]

We run mini-itx booting from compact flash...total cost 250 and boots in 10 seconds...

Check out peewee linux....

Re:Too Expensive

[drinkypoo]

If you could put linuxbios on a mini-itx system then you could netboot using kernel level autoconfiguration, and then kick over to another linux kernel.

Re:Too Expensive

[codepunk]

Great idea except that I have 125 users log into a single desktop server all at the same time. Pusing the kernel to all of them at once would kill the network. This is the same reason I don't use ltsp, I opt insted to use just xdm with a local linux mini distro.

Your SIG

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sig makes me want to poop in your mouth.

I don't know why.

Please change it.

Insightful?

[EnderWiggnz]

dear jackass,

a 233 Geode (old cyrix) is what your basic thin-client runs.

the fast ones run Via's C3...

Re:Insightful?

[MuParadigm]

Actually, the fast ones usually run P3's. I expect that will change to Pentium M class processors as the price for them comes down. Those really are nice chips, and usually get the same processing speed at 1/2 to 2/3 the clock rate of a similarly quick P4.

Re:Insightful?

[EnderWiggnz]

which *profitable* thin client company are you talking about?

cuz mate, i know that both #1, and #2 in this industry dont have a single Intel offering.

IBM used to, but they discontinued their in-house line.

Re:Insightful?

[MuParadigm]

Wyse, and I got it wrong. They use AMD processors. My bad. So it's not Intel, but it's not Via C3 either.

Re:Insightful?

[EnderWiggnz]

Neoware uses the C3, and i'm certain that Wyse is also using the C3 - (i evaluated one of their boards).

As for "using AMD's" - The Geode is now owned by AMD, and not National Semi - is that what your talking about, or are they using a true AMD processor?

the transmeta's are the wave of the future... the energy consumption (and heat produced) is obscenely lower.

Re:Insightful?

[MuParadigm]

The one I'm looking at, from Wyse, is using a 400 Mhz AMD K6. At least that's what an earlier model of the line I'm looking at was using. The model I want may be using something faster, but I haven't verified it yet.

Anyway, I thought I knew what I was talking about, didn't do enough research before posting, and I'm going to have to give you this one and admit that you're right and I'm wrong. Oh well, we all fuck up once in a while.

Re:Insightful?

[EnderWiggnz]

of course, arguing with an engineer at one of the companies in questions is always a bad idea :-)

Re:Insightful?

[MuParadigm]

Ok, that made me laugh. You could've said something sooner though, dude.

Re:Insightful?

[EnderWiggnz]

not a big deal... though, i must say - that most of this articles discussion is quite amusing to me.

some many people... so few clues...

Or..

[rf0]

Get a mini-ITX mother board running at 1 Ghz. Add solid state memory (CF) + video + monitor

Silent fast-ish thin client $500

Rus

Hey, Mini-ITX fanboys

[stratjakt]

For everyone complaining and bragging about how they built a mini-itx box for much cheaper, it's time for a whack from the clue by four.

These are terminals, not stupid little computers shoved up an ET dolls ass.

Terminals generally include monitor, keyboard and mouse, ready to plug and play.

Thank you, that is all.

Re:Hey, Mini-ITX fanboys

[chill]

For everyone complaining and bragging about how they built a mini-itx box for much cheaper, it's time for a whack from the clue by four.

These are terminals, not stupid little computers shoved up an ET dolls ass.

Terminals generally include monitor, keyboard and mouse, ready to plug and play.

Thank you, that is all.

Bzzzt. Wrong answer!

Monitors are almost always sold separately. Check out HP's site and you'll see them listed under "options and accessories". I've got an office full of monitors that'll work fine with thin clients. I don't want to pay for disposal of these, shipping for new ones, etc.

Keyboards and mice don't significantly add to the price of mini-ITX or thin clients.

Terminals cost more usually because of the management software/tools -- and less competition. There doesn't seem to be a lot of organized white-box terminals for either thin or hybrid clients.

I thought it was Dreamcast news

[ishpeck]

The Transmeta logo looks like the swirly thingy for the Dreamcast.

alternative

[sstory]

Or, you could go to Dell and get a Thick Client for the same price. $600 will get you a 2.2 Ghz box, with 256M ram, 15" flatscreen, 40 Gig HD. Comes with XP Home, or you could throw Mandrake 9.2 on there for free.

Re:alternative

[geekoid]

then you get to install all the software($), set up a back-up program for each individule PC($$), and when the user screws up a setting, send somone to the desk to fix it($$$), then when a virus hits, you have to be sure their updated($), and each machine will have to be indivule scanned($$$$).

get the picture?

Now I would use one for the home, but for a lot of business, this is the way to go.

Re:alternative

[sstory]

You can use it as a thin client. You just keep your options open. You should spend some of your ($$$$$$) on a spell/grammar check.

Re:alternative

[ErixTr]

Mandrake 9.2 is not out yet. It is in RC2 state.

security matters ...

[Anonymous Coward]

soo JIHA! i just need to take out the one server and nobody can keep working!
hmmm even though i only killed one computer the whole frecking network is down. now if they catch me will i be liable for the whole network or just that one server me asks attorney ...

anyways the military is never going to buy that, and you know who gets to spend does tax dollars ...

"fai, hacker boy used his card again."

Re:security matters ...

[Anonymous Coward]

>anyways the military is never going to buy that,
>and you know who gets to spend does tax
>dollars ...

Bwahahahahaha!!!

you, have no clue what your talking about.

-a thin-client engineer.

When Less Is More

[istartedi]

Of course as others have pointed out, there is no pricing info; but let's assume for a minute that the things are priced the same or more than a regular PC.

Why buy one?

Because these things aren't aimed at J. Random Linux Hacker, or even Joe Blow Windows user. They're aimed at corporations who want to keep people locked down. Just try keeping a PC made from standard parts totally locked down. I've even seen standard PCs kludged with locks and keys, which people just ended up jimmying open so they could install a video card they could use to play games when the boss wasn't looking!

With just a stupid thin client on your desk, you have to stay focused on the budget spreadsheet, or the timeline for ordering new timeline forms, or TPS reports, or whatever it is that's infinitely more boring than what a standard PC can offer.

In other words, it's more likely to be secure by design right from the start.

Also, there are fewer players in this space. Basic economics tells us that when there is less competition, prices remain high.

Just to disclose, I do have some stock in Transmeta, and it's doing really well today.

Would I buy such a device? Of course not. I have no need for it. I'm not a corporation that loses $50/employee/day in lost productivity due to PC maintenance and games.

Re:When Less Is More

[evilviper]

Just try keeping a PC made from standard parts totally locked down.

In all fairness, if you plan to be using a standard PC as a thin-client, you don't need to lock-down anything, since everything is on the server.

Also, effectively locking the case will stop tampering. There are many cases designed to be locked, so they aren't just kludges.

I am the Ku troll!

[Anonymous Coward]

You mispelled GN oppix, there buddy.

I'll buy thin clients some day...

[kabocox]

I'd love to buy thin clients some day. I have 2 kids and a wife. I'd love 4 or 5 thin clients and 2 home servers. One would be a media database / fileserver / print server. The other server I'd want powerful enough to run any current windows game on all five of the thin clients. I'd want the cost of the thin clients to be about $150-$200. $200 * 5 = $2000. Of course the two servers would most likely each cost atleast that much.

Re:I'll buy thin clients some day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear ya man.

All I want for Christmas is me two front teef.

Any other wishlists out there? Anyone?
No?
Guess it's just you and me my friend...
So 2 kids and a wife? How are your parents? Are they still healthy? How about brothers and sisters, do you have any? It's all just so fascinating. Please tell us more daddy, we want to hear what you have to say.

Re:I'll buy thin clients some day...

[MuParadigm]

It's just so courageous to be a smart ass when you're an Anonymous Coward.

Dickless Asshole.

what about the t5700?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too fast for ya? T5700 with 1Ghz Transmeta

Re: PC v. Thin Client

[MuParadigm]

Well, you can get a Thin Client for as little as $200-$400. I just bought several for one of my clients at about $650 a pop, but that was because I wanted them to be capable of Windows emulation and X Windows.

The real savings is in support costs, though. With regualar PC's and hard drives, the initial costs to setup and secure the workstation are much higher, and even then the users are always screwing things up with Bonzia Buddy, assorted screensavers, etc. Using thin clients with Linux or Terminal Server really cuts down on support costs.

Anyway, the statement in that article which I found odd was that HP was the leader in the Thin Client market. Everytime I have to set clients up with more TC's, I research the market again, and Wyse is always the best deal. Frankly, I thought they were in the lead for the thin client market, though I may be wrong.

Remember, no HREFs - no moderation :)

[Anonymous Coward]

http://h18000.www1.hp.com... clicky clicky

Overkill?

[noda132]

I don't see why people need 500+ Mhz for a thin client. I mean, even 200 Mhz is overkill. Why the need for such powerhouses?

Re:Overkill?

[slide-rule]

Why the need for such powerhouses?

It's probably a similar effect as in HD purchases at the local shop. If I should need to replace one of my systems' hard drives, the largest one consuming less than 10 GB (across two OS's), I'll probably have to buy a 40 or 60GB drive. This in that smaller units aren't available anymore, and even if they were, the price differential would probably be so small in comparison that I'd just buy the sizes that are available. For a few percent increase in price, just go ahead get the several percent increase in resources. Its cost effective until you break even.

How about a Transmeta based mini-Server?

[-tji]

Thin clients may be useful in some limited business applications. But, it does not seem to be a very big niche.

There is growing demand for small linux server boxes. Either for network use, as a T1/DSL router/firewall/VPN box. Or, as a small LAN server, doing things like DNS/DHCP in a corporate environment. Or, as an everything server for Home/DSL use, WWW/SMTP+spam-asassin/Proxy/DNS/DHCP/etc.

If someone could package the TM5800 in a small form factor case, with no fans, and a drive bay for either a 2.5" or 3.5" HDD, it could be an excellent gateway/server platform. It has extremely low power consumption specs, and can even reduce the clock rate when not in heavy use. It runs cool enough to run without a cooling fan, and be completely silent - other than the hard drive.

Re:How about a Transmeta based mini-Server?

[evilviper]

If someone could package the TM5800 in a small form factor case, with no fans, and a drive bay for either a 2.5" or 3.5" HDD, it could be an excellent gateway/server platform

Why do so many people on /. always have to say this crap?

If you want a gateway/server machine, you get a low-power, dirt-cheap box. What you are suggesting is like buying a home computer system, and then striping out 80% of it, then upgrading part of it... In other words, why not just get a $100 system that was designed for the job, rather than paying $1,000 to get this to work, even though the thin-client solution will be comparatively crippled.

WHY?

Ah, but the man has a point

[The Tyro]

A multimedia gateway and mail/file server for the home, running linux, piping its output to four or five thin client terminals scattered around the house.

If one person wants to play doom on one... fine. He can do it while another person checks their email, and yet another writes a paper. Set up a large RAID for all the .oggs and divx movies you would rip from your own CD/DVDs.

Who could ask for more than that? I've looked into a similar setup with a dual-proc main server, but I was planning on simply using laptops as the thin clients... screen, keyboard, etc, etc all included, quiet, no fuss. Now, getting the average laptop to netboot from a PCMCIA card is an problem... but you could simply boot from flash and get the rest from the central server.

Build it, and they will come.

Re:Ah, but the man has a point

[Repugnant_Shit]

Is playing video games over say ssh/X possible? I don't think a Windows Terminal client can use DirectX. Does X support something like OpenGL remotely? That'd be pretty damn cool :)

Re:Overkill? Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

We run 30 X terminals attached to a Sun box and with the Gnome/Mozilla bloatware running, anything below 350MHz at the terminal side causes noticeable slowdowns. Maybe XFree86 just blows, I don't know.

I do know that all native CDE and OpenLook apps scream on slow boxes, but Gnome and KDE apps really start to choke them.

Make sure the screensavers are running locally. Few things are more fun than watching an gigabit ethernet link and 4 CPUs completely soaked by two dozen screensavers running unthrottled on the server.

Re:X is expensive because nobody wants it

[Anonymous Coward]

They either build their own X terms out of cheap PCs (it should be easy to turn an HP thin client into an X term running *bsd or linux) or pay out the ass for expensive X terms to connect to their more expensive solaris boxes.

Re: PC v. Thin Client

[IM6100]

Wyse has always been strong in the dumb-terminal market, now renamed 'thin client.'

Literally countless numbers of Wyse 'green screen' terminals have been deployed.

Users don't like dumb terminals, though. IT people do. It gives the power back to them.

Re:Pixar: Good movies, suck-ass company

[Rob Simpson]

Encoding, sure. But my 733Mhz VIA C3 doesn't go above ~70% on decoding, and it even has crappy integrated video. Of course, it was also less than half this price, and in Canadian dollars... not very thin, though...

Why the hell did Mozilla change the subject line?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheesh.

Better specs and pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/Cana da/10447.html#11746

You can still use a Dell as a thin client.

[g_bit]

There is nothing stopping you, why not leave your options open? Buying a Dell means that if you need to use it as a thick client someday, you still can.

I agree

[prisoner]

but at ~$600 there really isn't a compelling reason to consider them instead of a regular desktop...

Thin Clients Vs. PC

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm seeing alot of posts stating "I can buy a PC for two hundred bucks cheaper..." etc. There is a HUGE advantage and cost savings when using thin clients. First and foremost, the initial cost of implementing thin clients on hardware vs. hardware comparison is more expensive, this is a given. When you look into IT cost associated w/ the maintenence/implementation it is MUCH MUCH cheaper and easier to manage. The company I work for is top reseller of IGEL based thin clients in North America (http://www.igel.de) Infact most of our business originates from Thin Client sales. Here is a common scenario: Company ABC looks at PCs because of the cheaper cost. Company XYZ looks at thin clients. Company ABC pays for a PC, OS License, and deployment costs. For a large corporate rollout, lets say 1600 workstations (across the country) this takes approximately 18 months. Then six months afterwards you need to start all over, updating/reimaging, and updating the hardware. Hard drives go bad, users screw up their system etc. Company XYZ on the other hand, has us ship the units directly to the location, they plug it in, connect over the internet to the "management server" where the client is configured in less that 5 minutes by tech support, rebooted and its done... no IT personel are used for installation, and when it comes ot upgrading an image, or setting it back to defaults... how about the ability to do 10000+ machines within 10 minutes at the same time, REMOTELY? Sounds like thin clients kick some PC ass, huh?

Re:Thin Clients Vs. PC

[codepunk]

No you don't get it... I use mini-itx boxes in a thin client environment. Yes it is a pc but I boot them from compact flash hanging off a ide adapter. It boots in ten seconds and is totally silent(no fans) and all solid state. Did I mention the whole rig costs 240 dollars...Oh yes the power supply is sealed and the machine only burns 17 watts in this configuration.

Re:Thin Clients Vs. PC

[signingis]

Link please. :) Too lazy to google, and I imagine there will be plenty of results for mini-ITX.

Re:X is expensive because nobody wants it

[CapeBretonBarbarian]

As per my previous post, you really need to take a look at SunRays if you're considering running X applications off a Solaris/SPARC box.

And as for the price of a SPARC/Solaris server, take a look at the prices on something like the SunFire V210 or their other entry level servers.

My Experiences with The T5700

[sybarite]

I am an integrator that is currently rolling out the T5700 (1 GHz Crusoe running embedded Windows XP) to several dozen users at a local business. The strategic direction of the customer is to replace desktops with terminals wherever possible (their business apps all reside on a farm of Citrix servers). They liked this model terminal over the old ICA only terminals as it had more of a 'true' Windows look and feel with the Start Menu and Task Bar. Imagine my joy when I found out that these XP embedded devices are subject to both of the recent RPC critical vulnerabilities! I can only dream of future without Windows, but stuff like this might hasten the day.

I think it does... but I have not used it

[The Tyro]

OpenGL does support X, via the GLX API. I'm not sure how well it works, but it'd be pretty sexy to play OpenGL games (like Quake, CS, etc) over your X-terminals.

pretty damn cool indeed.

Go build a Linux Terminal instead

[Nice2Cats]

It is beyond me why anybody would want to pay that amount of money for a Thin Client -- unless of course they can play tax games this way. The Linux Terminal Server Project (LTSP) would seem to blow this out of the water. At LinuxWorld in San Francisco the LTSP project picked up an award for "Best Open Source Project", and for good reason.

Instead of going to HP, go out and get yourself a AMD K-6 or something similar, 64 MByte of RAM, and good graphics card from Ebay. If you have money to spend, spend it on a good monitor -- get DVI if you can, the difference to VGA is spectacular. Now, install the LTSP software.

I have one of these setups at home and it is beautiful. When I want to use the terminal, I hit the on switch, when I'm done, I log off and turn it off. There is no hard disk, no great heat source that requires big loud fans, and once it is set up, zero maintainance.

Ah well, there is one born every minute, as they say, and HP probably has all kinds of old hardware they're getting rid of this way, too...

Jump in Transmeta stock

[migstradamus]

Finally! After the 28.80% jump this caused in their stock price, TMTA is finally worth more than the WorldCom in my portfolio that I'm keeping as a souvenir (at 0.068 per share it's not good for anything else).

Lock down your desktops

[msobkow]

In an environment which locks down the desktops to keep the users from installing additional software, Bonzai buddies, and all that other drek, your support costs are not substantially different between cheap PCs and thin clients.

The problems show up when you have to deal with users demanding access they don't need. With a thin client, you tell them it can't be done and they believe you. With a cheap PC, they know it can be done and some PHB always forces you to make an exception for that one user. And another. And another.

If system/network admins were allowed to make the final security decision, half of the problems would be gone before the users could finish typing the email requesting special access.

Re:Overkill? Not really

[MuParadigm]

Unless it's 2 dozen OpenGL screensavers running unthrottled on the server.

Which reminds me, one important bit of advice for setting up a terminal server: make sure its got a good graphics card. Screen graphics (especially for MS and Citrix) are rendered on the terminal server before being forwarded to the client, where they are re-rendered for display. It seems like a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised at how many companies put terminal services on 3Ghz box with 2 GB RAM and 16 MB onboard video RAM, then wonder why the terminal server starts slowing down at 8 users. D'uh.