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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DiViT who wrote (50898)	10/9/2000 8:29:59 PM
From: Andy Thomas	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

"Although these Internet devices cost slightly less to manufacture than standard PCs, analysts have questioned the viability of such limited-function appliances. The cost difference remains fairly negligible, and over half the homes in the United States already have PCs. " yes the rumor of the coming thin clients almost rang true when local storage was still a bit of a cost issue a few years back. with local storage now so cheap the only compelling feature i can think of for thin clients is the reduced form factor.

To: DiViT who wrote (50898)	10/9/2000 10:20:15 PM
From: Charles Tutt	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74651

I suppose the obvious question is, if thin clients are so useless, why would Microsoft bother with them? Charles Tutt (TM)

To: DiViT who wrote (50898)	10/10/2000 4:10:12 AM
From: dybdahl	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74651

That's the big failure of the early thin clients. They just had too little functionality. And it is difficult to convince a reseller to sell thin clients, if consulting hours is the primary income of the reseller. What will make thin clients sell, is added value compared to the PC. Easy configuration and good games is what sells the Sony Playstation, which will work as a thin client in some ways. Sponsorship might also sell some thin clients (I (I mean, who wants to sponsor PC support?!?) Microsoft might sell thin clients if they extended their Terminal Services capabilities (colors!!!) and made more advertisement for it, but then they could lose on the desktop market in the long run, because X-Windows is a better system for LAN thin clients. Consulting companies might also be a key to better thin client distribution. Several big companies over here replaced their desktop PCs with thin clients after having consulted one of the big consulting companies. IBM also likes thin clients very much, and they don't sell their thín clients cheap!! Microsoft just has to make their thin-client Playstation compatible...