JC - I have to disagree with some of your comments - you are comparing Win9X as the PC OS when the correct comparison in today's commercial world should be Win2K.
For example, say I want to deploy a thousand desktops, and I want to allow the users some freedom in how they configure those but don't want to tie up my staff with "futzing". I would use a legacy-free iPaq, which eliminates almost all the hardware compatibility issues. I would set up the base image and distribute using the standard tools that CPQ provides - this would set the desktops up with standard productivity tools (and also log all the license data so we are "compliant" and legal).
Then I use intellimirror to maintain the desktop context, automatically, on a user by user basis. Now, if my user really digs himself in deep (which is hard to do since his peripherals are USB or the standard CPQ plugins common to the Armada laptop line) I can just pull a vanilla box off the shelf and with no further thought, bring that guy back to where he was. That also works for a hardware failure.
Some early work suggests that this approach reduces the cost of client administration by a factor of 5. If that holds up in a broader context, that means that these full-featured desktops will cost half of what it costs to administer a Citrix (wyse) thin client, and that does not consider the much reduced server load (which causes a capital expense about equal to the client cost in a Citrix solution).
I would dispute your claim that most people use PCs for internet connectivity in the corporate environment - productivity apps still are the big usage item in every study I have seen. And those are still predominantly on the local machine, even though reliable server-based configurations have been available for nearly 10 years.
As far as running through scandisk, rebooting, etc - that does not happen on the iPaq / Win2K configuration. You really should try it - it uses a journaling file system which is hard to break and even if you do, it reconstructs pretty cleanly without the silly scandisk stuff.
I would suggest that a 100Mb corporate network with gigabit backbone provides plenty of bandwidth to host virtually everything a corporate user would do, and that has been available (and common) for many years. Still, the apps have not migrated to the server. It will be a long time if ever before WANs can deliver that kind of bandwidth. So it's not a bandwidth issue - users just don't like it.
I think some of your suggestions are more likely in the consumer - home user segment, but that's not where the bulk of sales are. And the convergence products are getting a shaky reception to date, even in Japan, and the Japanese will try any damn-fool technical thing. |
