Thin Client PC Fits in Wall Socket

ukhackster writes "Last year, there was a lot of excitement about a cut-down PC that fitted into a wall socket. Next month, the Jack PC will go on sale in the UK for just £209 ($390)." From the article: "At a low price and using low power, MacLellan believes the device is 'one of the biggest developments in PCs that we have seen' and is one of the 'ever-growing range of thin clients, which are rapidly replacing PCs as a more effective desktop computing solution for modern businesses'. The Jack PC runs Windows CE, is designed to connect to 'any terminal server-based environment' and has Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP clients built in. It runs Internet Explorer 6.0 to connect to Web-driven applications, and runs an 'up to 500MHz' AMD RISC processor, which the company says is equivalent to a 1.2GHz x86. It can come with up to 64MB of flash memory and 128MB RAM."

Comments

Do I understand correct: no network boot?

[Mostly a lurker]

Surely the single biggest win with thin client solutions can be the ability to maintain a single boot image and just have the clients use the latest image. Unless I am missing something, that is not an option here. Given that I can get pretty compact second hand boxes for US$50 or so that work great with Linux Terminal Server, these wall socket devices seem cute but not very practical.

Re:what would this be used for?

[grundy]

HOTELS HOTELS HOTELS!!!!

They will eat this stuff up. Check your email from the room, great for travelling families and folks who *don't* have laptops. Use the usb connection to send out pictures from the vacation, or update the iPod for the beach. Yes, they'd have a server, but they'll also charge you $10 a day to use their "pc". And being a thin client, no matter what porn or spyware you wade through, it can be set to toast everything on exit. Just nail the monitor to the desk and put a "fluid" resistant membrane on the keyboard (ewww).

This would also be good for store applications like price check terminals, registry applications, who knows?

You don't know Jack!

[PIPBoy3000]

Sorry, had to get that out of the way. It's the coffee talking, really.

More and more I find that I want a bunch of dumb terminals around the house. Maybe my daughter wants to play the Barbie Princess games on the web, my son wants to listen to music, or my wife wants to check e-mail. This sort of device would be great for that sort of simple stuff.

The catch, of course, is that you can buy a normal PC for much less. I picked up a nice little Dell Laptop for $400 the other day. It's wireless, has a display, and can be taken on trips. Plus there's other older computers laying around my house that are equally powerful.

Perhaps the key is to emphasize "low power". Hook it up to a battery and solar panels and deploy it as a remote monitoring device. Put it in a motor home or use it as a carputer. Still, I think you're right to think that until they find the proper niche for this hardware, it's going to be tricky selling them by the truckload.

Re:You don't know Jack!

[jdray]

This unit does have some good uses, nailed down public access terminals and switch minimalist offices, but for mainstream thin-client usage I can't see it being very successful.

Think again. Software as a service is here. Even Microsoft thinks so, and they're usually the last to know such things. I hate to throw out such things in this environment, but the TCO of an 80-watt desktop machine, complete with floorspace considerations, ongoing maintenance of peripherals, power consumption, etc. drives the price of even the cheapest machines fairly high, putting this unit in competition.

Furthermore, I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one who would pay a premium for a unit embedded in a wall that replaced a freestanding thing. For evidence of this, check out the market for in-wall speakers. Sure, you can buy a Polk Audio bookshelf speaker for much less than an equivalent wall-mount speaker, and it's much easier to install after the wall has been built, but there's definitely a healthy market for in-wall speakers.

I think the real test of this unit for the home market will be how well it streams video. If people can install these anywhere they would want a television (in America, that's a lot of places) and stream video off of a central server either in their house or from the Internet, plus do a bunch of other Internet-type things at the same location, they'll sell well.

For the commercial market, a unit that performs modestly well as a desktop replacement will interest cube farmers who have a lot of clients that do most of their work either by single-application (data entry, customer service, etc.), by terminal server, or via web-based apps. In schools, libraries, and other common-access places, these will make maintenance and theft protection much easier.

Yup. Truckloads for sure.

Re:If it fits in a wall jack...

[joshsisk]

I would imagine so that a tech can attempt to power a dead one up without uninstalling it from the wall. To see if the PC is broken, or if there is just a problem with the cable...

Re:what would this be used for?

[naelurec]

Thin clients are ideal in those situations:

1. Centralized administration.. update software on the main server and your done = much lower administrative overhead. All thin clients offer same software offering.

2. If a thin client dies, within minutes you can swap it with another thin client and be back up and running (no extended downtime, reimaging, etc..).

3. Lower power consumption

4. Lower heat output .. quieter lab (servers are in the closet), lower A/C costs

5. Centralized network-wide update .. add another server to the cluster or update the existing servers and *all* clients benefit (no need to buy an entire lab worth of computers every few years..) -- think of computer failure/replacement before the upgrade cycle -- this has the potential for added administrative overhead (ie different disk images).

6. As more money is poured into the server backend, each user does get the added benefit -- common programs are already loaded in memory (fast startup times), user gets the capability of a multi-processor system with fast disk subsystem and gobs of memory.

7. Thin clients could be configured to boot into different servers .. ie rdp sessions to Windows and Linux servers .. this offers a wider range of software and choice for the user.

Possible drawbacks .. certain apps don't work well in this scenario -- ie full screen video playback, some multimedia functions, etc.. beefing up your network infrastructure might be necessary (ie multiple gigabit links to the servers setup on switch to full 100mbps to each client) depending on the intended application.

- Limited disk/flash drive functionality -- might be necessary, might not be (though most should be utilizing email or online transfer I'd imagine..)

- If backend is not sufficiently redundant (ie server cluster), there could be the potential for single-points of failure.

- Run away processes or heavy processing from a single user could adversely impact all users on a given server. Resource allocation or monitoring is required.

Re:what would this be used for?

[kfg]

. . .requires custom installation of jacks anywhere you'd use it.

Like, at your desk?

limited standalone capability (designed to leverage Terminal Services)

Well, yes. It is overtly a thin client. The cpu is really just a "cache" of computing power with the real computing power residing elsewhere. But that receptionist and bank of data entry people on the eigth floor are wasting the power of their PC anyway and still have to be connected to the central server to accomplish their jobs.

This isn't a box for programmers or engineers. It's a simple tool for working schlubs. There's more of them then there are of us and most of them do nothing but simple data entry and a smidgeon of data retrieval. Reservation clerk, med tech, POS, DMV registration, insurance claims processing

price (not really that inexpensive, no bargain over current desktop prices

5w vs.80w+. Multiply by the eigth floor. Check your electric bill for the savings. Why do you think almost all businesses have gone over to LCD screens even though they may have been twice the price of a CRT? It ain't for the form factor.

I'm guessing it's more of a business solution. . .

Well who else would have a cube farm full of thin clients?

I can't imagine it in any of the business settings I've experienced.

I can only suggest that your experience has been limited. If I ever do the brick and mortar thing again I can see myself going for a half dozen or so of these things.

In fact I could see myself sticking one of these things in the back panel of my desk at home and connecting it to the big box in the closet; if it weren't for:

WinCE
IE6

The show stopper.

KFG