Tired of paying thousands of dollars for end-user PCs? Tired of having to support and administer desktop environments that rival server setups in complexity? Then a thin client, of either the network computer (NC) or the Windows-based terminal (WBT) variety, might be just the end-user desktop computer for your company. While the idea of thin-client computing is not a new one, some new twists on the idea make it worth your while to consider thin clients for at least some of your end users.
This article examines the major thin-client vendors and compares and contrasts their products to help you figure out what kind of thin client might be right for you. (While it is not possible to cover all thin-client offerings in this article, the analysis I provide is a good place to start. For a more thorough listing of thin-client vendors, see the Midrange Computing AS/400 Online Yellow Pages at www.midrangecomputing.com/yellowpages/yellowpages.) To make your thin-client evaluation process easier, I’ve also provided a detailed table of all the major vendors’ product lines, how their features stack up against each other, and their base list prices. This table can be found on Midrange Computing’s July Web Edition at www.midrangecomputing.com/mc/99/07.
Some Historical Background
Before getting into feeds and speeds, first take a look at a little history. IBM gave the network computer its legitimacy in the corporate computing environment with the debut of its Network Station for AS/400s in October 1996. Simply put, an NC is an X-Window UNIX terminal with extensions that allow it to run AS/400 5250 and mainframe 3270 terminal emulators. Increasingly, NCs also contain Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) and Web browser support, so users can deploy Java-based client software and Internet-style protocols to access their legacy applications without resorting to 5250 or 3270 emulation. X-Window is a server-based graphical environment that provides much of the same
functionality of the modern 32-bit windows interface. In fact, most of the best ideas for that so-called Windows 95 interface were stolen from X, a windowing system first developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was the follow-on product to the aptly named W.
UNIX vendors improved X and started calling it X-Window. They did so because they wanted a graphical environment for the text-based UNIX OS to make it more user- friendly. They also wanted a graphical environment that would allow them to deploy relatively skinny UNIX workstations (called X terminals) on technical users’ desktops and have most of the graphics handled by central UNIX servers. UNIX servers were much less expensive than the mainframes and supercomputers that research organizations were used to buying, so this server-intensive approach sounded great to them. In effect, end users got close to having a full UNIX workstation on their desks for a fraction of the cost, and the whole thing could be centrally managed. With the NC, IBM applied the same logic to the AS/400 and mainframe server markets. In fact, IBM’s Network Stations are really beefed up X terminals from Network Computing Devices (NCD), one of the biggest X terminal vendors in the world.
In 1996, IBM and other vendors (such as NCD, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and a number of others who followed IBM’s lead) believed that the real drivers behind thin-client hardware adoption would be their low cost compared to full-blown PCs; their lower administration costs (because of the central administration that the network computing architecture is based on, but which is partially offset by higher server costs); and the adoption of Java as a client application environment.
Rather than killing off the PC market, the threat of network computers and the PC vendors’ desire to boost home PC market penetration spawned the market in sub-$1,000 PCs. To many IT managers, these cheap PCs obviated the need for an NC. For the past several years, with a few notable exceptions of big companies becoming frustrated with high PC administration costs, most NC sales have been as text-based terminal replacements. (According to vendors I spoke with, about 75 percent of end users at big AS/400 shops in the United States access their server applications through PCs, but that number drops to well under 50 percent at small and medium shops. PC penetration is even lower in the European AS/400 market.) Moreover, client-side Java has not matured enough for it to be a viable client development environment—Sun and Microsoft are still in court fighting over the specifications, and beta versions of Java 2 toolkits are only just now trickling into the market.
The Microsoft Factor
IBM may have legitimized the idea of thin clients in the AS/400 base with the Network Station, but, with its delivery of Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition last year, Microsoft and its hardware partners who sell WBTs to access Terminal Server (as well as competing products from NCD and Citrix Systems) are giving the thin-client market its first real taste of momentum. The reason is clear enough: End users are not so much frustrated with supporting the PC side of their own server applications as they are with trying to deal with Microsoft’s Office applications running on their PCs. With Terminal Server and its predecessors, Citrix’s WinFrame and MetaFrame, companies can keep a single, multiuser copy of Office applications on an NT server and allow multiple users to access these resources from a WBT. Terminal Server supports its own Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to let thin clients access server versions of Microsoft Office applications, while the Citrix programs support their own protocol, called Independent Computing Architecture (ICA). These two protocols are functionally equivalent.
It comes as no surprise, then, that many of the early vendors of network computers have spent the last six months getting WBTs out the door and are finding that these devices are outselling NCs, in many cases by wide margins. Like NCs, WBTs offer access to host applications through 5250 and 3270 emulation (often for an extra fee). Many can support Java and Web browsers, too. Soon, the dividing line between NCs and WBTs may become blurred, with the main distinction being that NCs come from an X terminal heritage, while WBTs are similar devices that tend to run Microsoft’s stripped-down Windows CE environment. Still, for the moment, there are plenty of differences between
the thin clients being peddled by the major vendors, and AS/400 shops have to think hard about what features they want today and what ones they may need in the future before they pick a particular NC or WBT for their end users. Here’s a bit of guidance on each vendor’s thin-client line and a little strategic advice.
Boundless Technologies
Boundless Technologies (www.boundless.com) is an amalgam of a number of different terminal vendors that now also sell WBTs. Boundless has two different lines, the Capios and the Viewpoints, each offering a different range of performance, memory, connectivity, and Windows application and terminal emulation support. AS/400 shops will probably be interested in only two models after checking out the specifications in my comparison table on the Web. The Capio 325 thin client comes with a 180-MHz Cyrix MediaGX processor, 16 MB of memory (expandable to 128 MB), 8 MB of flash memory (expandable to 72 MB) for storing client-side emulation programs (5250, 3270, and a half dozen others are included), Web browsers and other software for local booting, an Ethernet card, and everything but a screen, a keyboard, and a mouse—all for only $498. (Some NCs come with keyboards, mice, and screens; some do not, so shop carefully.) The Capios run Windows CE and offer support only for Microsoft’s RDP for multiuser Windows applications. The Viewpoint TC 300, which has a 133-MHz Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Am5x86 processor, 4 MB of memory, and 4 MB of flash memory for local terminal emulation and boot support, can support both Citrix ICA and Microsoft RDP.
IBM (www.pc.ibm.com/us/networkstation) probably sells the lion’s share of thin clients to AS/400 shops with its Network Station line of network computers. The Network Station 100s and 300s (which bear the model 8361 designation) are relatively underpowered compared to competitors’ offerings. And while the more recent Network Station 1000s use a much more powerful 200-MHz PowerPC 603e processor (which made its debut in the Apple Macintosh line way back when), neither the Network Station 1000s nor their predecessors offer flash memory for local booting of firmware and terminal emulation software.
While this may sound odd, IBM does have its reasons for building its NCs this way. For one thing, it takes out costs, which means that, after discounts, IBM can compete with the other aggressive players in the thin-client market. It also means that customers using NCs will have to dedicate substantial server power and network bandwidth to loading their NCs every morning. For many customers, this is not a high price to pay for overall lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) compared to PCs and much-improved functionality compared to 5250 green-screens. Nonetheless, the cost of ownership studies performed to date by Gartner Group, International Data Corporation (IDC) and Zona Research have not taken the cost of server MIPS and network bandwidth into account.
Neoware Systems
Neoware Systems (www.neoware.com) is probably still known best by its old name, Human Design Systems or HDS Network Systems. (The company changed its name to stop being confused with Hitachi Data Systems, the clone mainframe maker.) Neoware has been in the network computer market from the get-go, and says that, by virtue of IBM’s strong control over the AS/400 base, it does not sell its @workStation NCs to all that many AS/400 customers. Where customers have Token-Ring networks, says Neoware, no one can beat IBM on price. However, Neoware says that more and more AS/400 customers are interested in its NeoStation WBT line. The NeoStations use IBM’s 66-MHz PowerPC 860 embedded processors and support either Neoware’s netOS or Microsoft’s Windows CE firmware. The netOS machines support ICA, while the Windows CE machines support
IBM
RDP. Both types of NeoStations can be equipped with a special software suite, including 38 terminal emulations that load into flash memory; this extra software costs $49.
Network Computing Devices (NCD)
Network Computing Devices (www.ncd.com) offers three different lines of thin clients. Its oldest products are the Explora network computers, which are modified X terminals that offer support for Web browsers, Java, and the Citrix ICA protocol for multiuser Windows applications. The Explora 400 and 450 use IBM’s PowerPC 403 processors and are what IBM rebrands as the Network Station 8361 (series 100 and 300 in some spec sheets). The NCD versions have more memory and connectivity options, but unlike the IBM models, the Exploras do not offer 5250 terminal emulation, even as an option. The Explora 700 is a machine that is sold only by NCD. It includes a 150-MHz MIPS R4700 processor on the system board, which also has enough memory slots to support 256 MB of memory and an integrated video card that can support monitors with up to 1600 x 1200 resolution. All the Explorers can have up to 12 MB of flash memory for storing local boot information, browsers, and terminal emulation software.
NCD bought its Business NC line from Tektronix last year. These machines are also based on fast MIPS chips—in this case the R4300s—and have big blocks of memory and high-resolution graphics cards. Not surprisingly, they cost about as much as low-end PCs with similar power.
The new ThinSTAR line of WBTs from NCD is where the action is as far as the company is concerned. NCD says that customers replacing terminals found its Explora and Business NC lines attractive, but more and more, its customers want to in-stall server-side Windows applications as well as offer local terminal emulation on their thin clients to get access to legacy applications—but they don’t want to pay a lot for them. The ThinSTARS offer essentially the same functionality as the Business NCs with slightly less powerful processors but at anywhere from 25 to 50 percent lower initial hardware costs.
Sun Microsystems
While Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com/nc/products) has been able to make hay on the Java phenomenon it spawned, it has not been able to capitalize on it very well with its JavaStation thin client. Part of the problem is that Sun has not been able to deliver a chip specially tuned to run Java (which it has been promising for years), mainly because Java keeps changing so fast. The JavaStation, which is expensive and only offers 3270 emulation, is not a very good choice for AS/400 shops. However, it may be an appropriate thin-client choice for those customers who go to Sun to buy lots of servers and software to set up their e-businesses. Plenty of AS/400 customers will go to Sun, Hewlett-Packard, or Compaq for gear rather than to IBM—if they can get the JavaStations at a significant discount, like 50 percent or less of the $1,100 list price.
Wyse Technology
Like many thin-client vendors, Wyse Technology (www.wyse.com) has been in the dumb terminal market for a long time and is seeking to revitalize itself by pushing thin clients as terminal and PC replacements. Unlike many thin-client vendors, Wyse offers only terminals that have local booting of firmware, terminal emulation, and Web software. Wyse believes that customers want to run Windows and other office applications from centralized servers but that they do not want to bog down their networks every morning when employees come in and boot up their workstations. Wyse offers three thin-client lines today, and as we go to press, it is getting ready to revamp those lines. AS/400 customers will probably want to look at the Winterm 3350 and the forthcoming Winterm 5355. Both machines have a 200-MHz Cyrix MediaGX processor, from 16 to 72 MB of memory, and substantial flash memory for storing local programs. Both machines offer 5250 terminal emulation and ICA support. The 3350, by virtue of its Windows CE firmware, supports
RDP. The Linux-based 5355 offers 5250 and ICA support as well as the Mozilla open source Web browser (which is based on Netscape Navigator), but customers have to pay extra for the RDP protocol.
Strategic Considerations
When you are shopping for thin clients, keep these things in mind: Don’t skimp on the processor power, main memory, or flash memory. You are buying for the future, not just for this year, and odds are Web and Java front-ends will require more computing power than you expect.
Try to keep your mix of thin clients down to a minimum. Every thin-client vendor has its own administration software, and none of them works with other vendors’ devices. While it is possible to run IBM’s Network Station Manager on an AS/400 and NCD’s ThinPATH on an Integrated Netfinity Server card alongside Citrix WinFrame or Microsoft Terminal Server, the whole point is to simplify your desktops. Pick a vendor that supports what you need and stick with that vendor.
And finally, get review hardware and software from each vendor and try out their wares before you commit to a big buy. You want to know exactly how well thin clients work with your applications, and no referrals from existing AS/400 customers can act as a substitute for your own experience. Nonetheless, get plenty of referrals to see if your experience fits theirs.
Related Materials
“Comparison of the Major Thin-client Vendor Products, Features, and Prices,” Midrange Computing (Web Edition), , www.midrangecomputing.com/mc/99/07
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