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

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.