Microsoft to Release a Thin-Client Windows XP

repking writes "I'm reading on Brian Madden's Thin Client Web that Microsoft is about to release (don't know exactly when) two new versions of Windows XP targeting the thin-client market (This products ARE NOT the Lite XP versions that Microsoft is about to release on certain countries like Brazil). Codenamed Eiger and Mönch, these two new releases would let you 'convert' old PC into thin-client Devices. Is Microsoft trying to compete with open source projects like PXES or ThinStation?"

Comments

widespread

[AndreySeven]

"Is Microsoft trying to compete with open source projects like PXES or ThinStation?"

I used to work for a school district in Washington that deployed ThinClient systems throughout the whole district. At first the staff were whining about how they couldn't install anything(like those dumb picture screensavers) but eventually it quieted down.

If I remember correctly, the ThinClients used Linux to connect to a server running Windows 2000, which made it the same as using a regular Windows box. there is quite a big market for these devices, so I am not surprised that MS is persuing it...

Competing with Citrix

[hellfire]

I love how the OS community assumes it's always about them. In the thin client arena, Microsoft's main competition is Citrix Metaframe. My company sells a solution that works on both citrix and terminal services. Citrix is more expensive but has more features. There are also a ton of addons and configurations that TS doesn't do yet.

The more options MS comes up with, the more they can compete. So far our customers are buying more TS Licenses than Citrix since windows 2000 came out because it's adequate for most users who want a reasonably functional thin client solution.

Yes, thin client options on Linux are a threat, but that's just lumped into the over all Linux beast they are tackling right now and specifically isn't anything special... yet.

Competition for SunRay

[Darren.Moffat]

This is very likely in response not just to Citrix but to Sun's SunRay technology which is the ultimate thinclient - there is no OS on a SunRay it is basically a remote keyboard/mouse/usb hub/audio/framebuffer-display all hanging off a network interface.

SunRay is very heavily used in US Military applications because they really like the zero state on the desktop and no ability for state to be put there. It is even used with Trusted Solaris (which provides Mandatory Access Controls), to access Citrix services.

SunRay also has very simple and very effective desktop mobility, pull out smartcard move to new SunRay unit plug in card, reauthenticate, and off you go.

SunRay however does require dedicated Sun specific hardware, but that hardware is pretty cheap.

Re:Thin clients don't work

[dublin]

How many times must hitory repeat itself?

1 - Diskless Workstations
2 - X-terminals
3 - Network Computers

None ever saw widespread popularity.

I've run networks of literally thousands of the first two (I'll agree NCs never really took off, as they were neither fish nor fowl - running limited applications locally, but without enough power to do it well...)

XTerms and Diskless workstations (to a lesser degree) are by far the most effective, consistent, cost-effective, and easy-to-manage computing environment I've ever run across. (And I have worked for a company that had only a dozen or so Unix Administrators supporting several thousand users in a business unit that generated a billion dollars on the bottom line. Over half of those users were on high-performance NCD or Tektronix X-terms.)

The concept has a LOT of merit. There's really no question that it's the optimal way to set things up from a minimal managment point of view. (I've also been on the corporate staff of the world's largest vendor of remote managment solutions, and no, there's no managment tool or framework on the planet that can achieve the same leverage you can get through a well-designed X-Term deployment.)

I'm convinced that if MIT hadn't abandoned X, but continued to develop it for multimedia support, Windows XP might never have gotten where it is. To a sad but somewhat true degree, it may have been the lack of MP3 playing ability that doomed the X-term approach...