Forgetful mobile devices for careless users

IDC research manager of IT spending, Jean-Marc Annonier, expects a broadband connection to be the minimum requirement for the remote use of thin clients.

“Thin clients are not really good for mobility,” he said. “What you need is a live network connection for the thin client to connect to the server.”

“You can’t do this on a train, definitely, even if you have a 3G connection,” he told iTnews.

“The problem is latency,” he said. “With 3G, you may have one second of latency, [during which time] you can’t see what you’re doing.”

But for businesses whose employees work predominantly from the office, home, or a client’s broadband-enabled premises, mobile thin clients could deliver not only security, but economic benefits as well.

A recent report by IDC found thin clients to reduce hardware and software costs by 87 percent, IT costs by 61 percent, and worker downtime by 49 percent when compared with traditional PCs.

Through reducing the need for hardware upgrades and enabling software updates to be rolled-out centrally on the server, thin clients were found to produce a 466 percent return on investment for businesses that were studied.

Large organisations are expected to reap the greatest return on investments for thin client deployments. Annonier expects organisations with between 500 to 1000 workers, using between 300 and 700 devices, to have most to gain.

IDC estimates that one quarter of Australian organisations already have deployed thin clients, and deployments are roughly evenly split between production or pilot phases.

13 percent of organisations are found to be evaluating the technology, while six percent claimed to have no plans to deploy thin clients. The remaining 56 percent of organisations surveyed were either unable to respond, or unaware of the technology.

“Computer virtualisation, although not a new concept, has come of age,” Annonier wrote in the report.

“The days of the traditional PC and the distributed computing model as we know them are numbered and the trend towards centralised computing is already becoming increasingly evident,” he wrote.

According to HP’s Wright, customer feedback for the 6720t has been positive so far.

She expects mobile thin clients to appeal especially to mobile workers who deal with sensitive information, such as those in the health and finance industries.

“Being a new product, there’s a lot of conversation and a lot of hype,” she told iTnews. “From my point of view, it [the technology’s suitability] really does depend on what the IT manager wants to use the thin client for.”

“I do hear from customers that security is on their minds, and I do believe that mobile thin clients will offer what they are after,” she said.

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