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Thin client devices revisited

Best forgotten or time for a renaissance?

Study Deploying, maintaining and supporting desktop PCs isn’t cheap, and also represents an ongoing headache for IT. On paper the answer is obvious – at least for some types of user – simply give them a thin client device instead and run their desktop virtually on the server.

Given the way in which desktop virtualisation software has come on in recent times, the overall cost model can look pretty attractive especially when operational and security costs are considered.

But the thin client hardware you might use as a replacement for full-fat PCs is often associated with the word ‘compromise’. Many remember the early days of latency issues, graphics limitations and the trickery needed to get local printers and other peripherals working acceptably with thin clients, not to mention the pushback from users that had lost the freedom they enjoyed with their previous PC.

In the interim, thin client technology has moved on considerably, but so too have browser-based devices like Chromebooks and software-based thin client alternatives.

So where are we today with this class of technology? Are dedicated hardware-based thin clients best forgotten, or is it time for their renaissance?

Tell us what you think and where the different thin client options fit into your world in our latest survey. There are only 6 questions in the main section and the last one asks for the best and worst examples of thin client use you have seen, so short and potentially cathartic.

Click here to get started.

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