I've heard that "thin clients" are very limiting, i.e; cannot hook up a digital camera, sometimes unable to open archive documents origingally saved on PC, slower overall performance, smaller HD & more costly than a new PC bundle package. Please give me your opinion or what was your experience going from PC to TC? Well, it really depends on what sort of thin clients you are getting, or if you're getting more of a wise client. Yes, thin clients are typically more limited, but this is desireable from an IT Professional standpoint. What it translates to is that the end-users will be able to cause less trouble and still do what he/she needs for the purpose of the jobs.
If you have a powerful-enough server, that isn't over-burdened by too many clients, you should have fairly fast performance, depending on what exactly you are doing. The machines shouldn't have much of a hard drive at all, and really only need a decent graphics card, and minimal RAM and processor speed.
In actuality, thin clients ARE NOT more expensive that PC bundles for several reasons. First of all, you need very minimal system specs for these thin clients. Secondly, upgrades are usually done on the server end, so your business really only needs to upgrade one machine. The IT department saves lots of money by more easily deploying updates and maintainence from a central unit. Also, depending on how your setup is, they can purchase far less software licenses, because it is only the servers that need the license. This means that (MS Office for example) the software cost drops from $300 * 50 machines to just simply $300. Of course, there is the cost of the server software, but if you have enough clients, the savings over time is quite lare. You are right, thin clients can be limited.... from a point of view of the USER. The IT guy can install special programs for you on the so-called SERVER.
If your job has special requirements, be sure to provide your IT guy the full list.
In general TC is a good idea for a company. Hotels and Libraries should be providing these to visitors. The maintenance costs is much lower. Thin clients are actually good. I work in the IT department and they have them. It's cost effective than buying everyone a PC. The Thin-client just transfers images from the Terminal Server and works just as if you were on a PC. the bad thing is..Movies do not show too good or sound, depending on the type of thin-client that they get and the terminal server setup. You can go to www.wyse.com -- we got our thin-clients from them. The SX0 or S90s are good, they have Windows embedded on them.
With the TCs your profiles will be copied from the server then saved to the server once you log off AKA a Roaming Profile. Most of the things that you currenlty have installed might not work, because you dont have your own PC anymore. So whatever program that is on the server, that is what you will be able to access. Your camera might not work because you need drivers for it and they have to be installed on the Terminal Server for that to work. In other words..all your freedom of installing whatever you like has been taken away. |
