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Microsoft to Release a Thin-Client Windows XP 349

Posted by timothy from the see-also-ltsp dept.
repking writes "I'm reading on Brian Madden's Thin Client Web that Microsoft is about to release (don't know exactly when) two new versions of Windows XP targeting the thin-client market (This products ARE NOT the Lite XP versions that Microsoft is about to release on certain countries like Brazil). Codenamed Eiger and Mönch, these two new releases would let you 'convert' old PC into thin-client Devices. Is Microsoft trying to compete with open source projects like PXES or ThinStation?"
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Microsoft to Release a Thin-Client Windows XP More

Microsoft to Release a Thin-Client Windows XP

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  • Small buisness (Score:5, Interesting)

    by maotx ( 765127 ) <maotx@@@yahoo...com> on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:09PM (#12277467)
    As a sysadmin for a small buisness (~100 employees and growing fast) I've been trying to push thin-clients for a while now. My manager and the other sysadmin is very reluctant to pursue this solution but I cannot find any reason why a recpetionist, data entry, or accounting needs a new, full featured desktop. Thin-clients are rising in popularity again and it won't be long for them to become a familar site in small to large buisnesses. The only reason I can find to purchase Microsoft's XP thin-client is for those of us who would use it with terminal services. Terminal server requires a license for each connecting client, which a Windows OS has. One of the arguments I've heard against thin clients is the licensing fees for terminal service. Why purchase a $200 thin client and then a CAL license[1]when you can purchase a $400 full fledge desktop with XP? If my manager wasn't so strong against Office alternatives[2] a Linux server with OO.org would save the company a fortune. We wouldn't have to worry about costly maintenance[3] or extradanory licensing fees with an OSS thin-client.

    [1] can't recall how much a CAL costs
    [2] we're a government contractor and worried about compatibility
    [3] defrag, spyware, updates, corruption, etc

    • Re:Small buisness (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SeiRyu ( 774810 )
      Maybe this is part of their .net vision to have web-enabled windows? Trying to compete with GooOS maybe? [kottke.org]

      • Re:Small buisness (Score:4, Informative)

        by EnderWiggnz ( 39214 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:34PM (#12277697)
        This project will go nowhere, fast.

        The only possible way that it takes off is if MSFT literally GIVES IT AWAY.

        I've watched several thin client manufacturers try to leverage into this space, essentially betting the whoel company, and then failing.

        Jst because MSFT is doing it doesnt mean its a good idea. Why would anyone choose to cripple perfectly good PC's, especially if they have to pay for it?

        • Answer: TCO (Score:5, Informative)

          by slashdot_commentator ( 444053 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @10:34PM (#12278119) Journal
          Why would anyone choose to cripple perfectly good PC's, especially if they have to pay for it?

          Answer: Total Cost of Operation

          If you have a screen, CPU, RAM, and a NIC, you will not be wasting time extensively debugging problems, running viruses scans on each machine, etc. Less points of hardware failure. The logical bugs can come from only one place, the server. Its a matter of competence to make sure your servers are redundant, reliable, virus and bug free.

          You would probably avoid running a thin client on a full blown PC. You sort of add another point of failure. The other problem is that I haven't seen any Microsoft based platform that matches the concept seamlessly. Unlike *ahem* unix/linux....

          • Re:Answer: TCO (Score:5, Informative)

            by TeraCo ( 410407 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @10:50PM (#12278236) Homepage
            The other problem is that I haven't seen any Microsoft based platform that matches the concept seamlessly. Unlike *ahem* unix/linux....

            You haven't been looking too hard then. Since Microsoft got together with Citrix, things have been pretty sweet in terminal services land. A few of our bigger SME customers don't have a home network, their entire company is hosted on our servers, and they use managed/adsl links to get to it.

            The REAL problem with this sort of solution is that when it fails in a big way [1], it really fails. Not many companies can absorb all of their staff being down for a few hours. [1] The data centre is redundant down to the last rivet in the racks, the platforms are almost as solid. So the only failures they get are big.

        • Re:Small buisness (Score:3, Interesting)

          by ikkonoishi ( 674762 )
          My college for one would. We have about 30 PCs devoted to letting students access the Internet, research libraries, and write papers.

          Currently these are basically mid-range desktops with almost everything possible locked down to prevent everything from the bumbling click all installation prompts luser to the third year "I want to uninstall windows from this machine and run my own custom coded OS." geek.

          If instead of an actual computer they could just present an Internet terminal, and remote word app for l

        • Re:Small buisness (Score:5, Informative)

          by 10Ghz ( 453478 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2005 @02:08AM (#12279122)
          Why would anyone choose to cripple perfectly good PC's, especially if they have to pay for it?


          I did my final thesis on the subject. The reasons for using thin-clients instead of full-blown desktops are numerous:

          1. Cheaper machines. Minimal amount of RAM and CPU-power, no HD etc. etc. It does add up, and it does save money. And thin-client consume less electricity as well.

          2. Reliability. No fans that could break, no HD's that could break. No moving parts at all (unless the machine is equipped with a CD-drive).

          3. Ease of service. The thin-client breaks down, what do you do? Unplug it, plug another machine in it's place, continue working. It takes about 5 minutes. Hell, the user could do it himself!

          4. Longevity. You don't have to replace the clients in order to use newer software. Also, you could convert your obsolete desktops to thin-clients. Instead of buying new machines every few years, you could keep on using your machines for 5-10 years.

          5. Ergonomy. Totally silent operation, tiny footprint. All that makes for a nicer working-environment

          6. Ease of administration. No need to run around fixing clients, just work on the servers instead.

          • Re:Small buisness (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Thaelon ( 250687 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2005 @06:46AM (#12280065)
            You neglect to mention that *using* thin clients sucks monkey nuts.

            They redraw painfully slowly, they render simple bitmaps painfully slowly, where I work Firefox currently does not work on the thinclients (though it used to?). Certain applications (UltraEdit most notably) are a nightmare to scroll around in on a thinlclient. In certain cases turning on track changes in Word causes the thing to grind to a halt. Characters appear 1-2 seconds after you hit the key, Gmail's Login page brings the thing to its knees.

            They have mine so locked down I can't adjust my own god damn mouse sensitivity, the admin has to log into the thinclient himself and adjust it.

            Not to mention if one person uses all the terminal server's CPU everyone else's thinclient freezes up.

            I would kill for a real PC at work and I've got the newest model on site. I hate running on a machine that can't keep up with me.

            Sounds to me like you did your thesis purely from the admin standpoint and forgot about the poor suckers who have to use the godforsaken things.

            Tell me again how they're, ergonomic?

            • Re:Small buisness (Score:4, Informative)

              by 10Ghz ( 453478 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2005 @06:59AM (#12280115)
              You neglect to mention that *using* thin clients sucks monkey nuts.


              They do? I have built LTSP-systems, and they seem to work just fine. Clients were 100Mhz (or so) Pentiums with 32MB of RAM, and the servers were in the 1GHz range. Network was regural switched 100MB Ethernet. And everything worked smoothly. Hell, I could watch near DVD-quality movies on the server, and the client still had bandwidth to spare! And in many cases the thin-clients had BETTER performance than fat-clients. Reason being that many times the apps that were loaded on the clients, were already on the servers RAM, since someone else had already launched the app from another client. So the app loaded instanteniously (since it didn't have to be loaded from the HD)

              Not to mention if one person uses all the terminal server's CPU everyone else's thinclient freezes up.


              That's why you could use more than one server and more than one CPU.

              Sounds to me like you did your thesis purely from the admin standpoint and forgot about the poor suckers who have to use the godforsaken things.


              Like I said, I did USE the "godforsaken things", and they worked very, very well. Using regural apps worked just fine, as did watching movies (although I never bothered to make the sound work on the clients, I just wanted to see that could it be done). Granted, this was with LTSP [ltsp.org], I don't know how well (or badly) Windows would work.

              • Re:Small buisness (Score:4, Informative)

                by grolschie ( 610666 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2005 @07:24AM (#12280250)
                >> Not to mention if one person uses all the terminal server's CPU everyone else's thinclient freezes up.
                >>
                > That's why you could use more than one server and more than one CPU.

                We use dual Athlon XP CPU 2003 Servers for our thin clients at uni. When a student runs matlab, the whole system grinds to a halt. Scrolling a document in MS Word is a nightmare - pages keep scrolling long after letting go of the mouse. Using any of the selection tools in Photoshop make the app slow to a crawl or freezes. Various unexplained pauses freezes the entire desktop for seconds/minutes.

    • Re:Small buisness (Score:2, Informative)

      by bardothodal ( 864753 )
      I agree completely.Haveing tinkered with LTSP there is a huge savings potential here. And of course , MS is late to the game on this issue. There are already a several boot to Windows Terminal server options out there already. Available in floppy , cd , or network boot form. There are a few Linux Live cds that have Remote Desktop Client included. Sorry MS party is over.

    • Re:Small buisness (Score:5, Informative)

      by Craig Ringer ( 302899 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:22PM (#12277600) Homepage Journal
      I've been using thin clients at work for a while (LTSP based - netbooted X11 thin clients). They work very well, and I'm fairly happy with the results (some of the software could be less buggy, but that's OSS for you). They're delightfully easy to manage, in that they require essentially none. Unfortunately the server side configuration tools for user's desktop environments and apps are almost non-existent so you'll have to do a lot more rolling-your-own than you'd probably like.

      Unfortunately, I'm having real troubles with the vertical market vendors as we seek a new newspaper accounts & bookings system. They *all* require Windows desktops - many don't even work with TS / Citrix. Consider this factor VERY carefully before deciding on a thin client roll out, especially Linux thin clients.

      How well it works will depend a lot on how much in-house development you do... and in-house development is *expensive* (in time, if nothing else) to a small/medium business.

      I share your opinion on TS and CALs. I don't see the point - the CALs negate most of the lower outlay of thin clients. Citrix makes it even worse. Unless you expect to save a *lot* on management and running costs, I don't see how it's worth it.

      • Re:Small buisness (Score:4, Informative)

        by Buelldozer ( 713671 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:42PM (#12277775)
        Mmmm,

        As a CCEA (Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator) I'm at least partially biased but...

        First lets clear up a misnomer, the TS Cal that comes with Windows XP is ONLY valid with MS Terminal Server 2000, NOT 2003. If you are using TS 2003 you STILL need to buy a TS CAL...even for your Windows XP boxes.

        Now, let's look at what Citrix gives you...besides the nifty management utilities.

        Citrix gives you UPD I & II (Universal Printer Drivers roxxors)

        Citrix gives you the ICA protocol, more efficient bandwidth usuage.

        Citrix gives you Secure Access Gateway for SSL Encrypted sessions through any web browser.

        Citrix gives you published applications. (awesome)

        Citrix gives you load balancing.

        Citrix gives you MultiMedia, Browser, and Flash acceleration.

        Citrix gives you a common clipboard with a local desktop.

        Citrix gives you TS specific policies that allow you to tailor things like printer bandwidth, session bandwidth etc by user, group, subnet or machine name.

        Citrix gives you dynamic client names.

        Citrix gives you silent client rollout.

        In all honesty I could probably put about another thirty things in here, but I think my point is made.

        Long story short, if you think that all Citrix gives you is some nifty management tools then you REALLY need to look at the product.
        • I don't think I said anything about that being all Citrix had going for it. I know it's very capable.

          It's also *very* expensive, and when I looked at using Citrix for thin clients it turned out it would've been cheaper deploy desktops and we would've had a lot of change out of that. For 10,000 desktops I imageine the management benefits and other facilities bring you real savings. For 30, like I have, or the OP's 100, it's just not worth the outlay IMO.

          Since not even the basic Terminal Server turned out t
        • Microsoft's RDP came from Citrix, as many people probably don't realize. Citrix came out with a product called Winframe for NT 3.x and it was very similar to Metaframe all the way until Metaframe XP.

          Microsoft made a deal with Citrix to license some of their technology, and they put it into NT4 Terminal Server Edition.

          But if you're serious about terminal servers on Windows, Metaframe is a MUST. It makes the system so much more manageable, smoother, and usable. And published apps are awesome if you wa
      • Unless you expect to save a *lot* on management and running costs, I don't see how it's worth it.

        Since that's where the bulk of TCO is, that's where the savings come from.

        A lot of people don't seem to understand that the initial layout - buying machines and software - is almost always the *cheapest* part if IT infrastructure, particularly when you're talking about user desktops.

    • Re:Small buisness (Score:2, Interesting)

      by bluelip ( 123578 )
      I'm a gov't employee and I won't support anything that comes from a vendor in a MS-only format. I can nearly guarantee it won't even be opened unless it is straight text.

      Put that in your boss's pipe and have him/her smoke it.

      • Unfortunatly we only contract to a few divisions of the Navy and all of the commanders use Navy issued machines. This means Microsoft all the way. Everyday I hear about another division of the government take in another opensource software or format I put a little more pressure on my manager.

    • Re:Small buisness (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Monday April 18, 2005 @10:09PM (#12277965)

      Starting with Windows 2003, Microsoft now licenses Terminal Services separately. You get 0 license credit for having XP, even XP Pro. Previously, under Windows 2000 Terminal Services any 2000 Pro client gets granted a license from a free unlimited pool.

      Also, starting with Windows 2003, you have to decide between per-user or per-device pricing and you can't switch later. This means either having five computers with as many people logging in and out as can share them or having five users who can connect from any particular machine. Of course, this is all separate from the required client access license for Windows 2003 itself.

      A Terminal Service license will run the average business about $84; that's the cost under Microsoft's Open License program. Huge companies under the Select program will no doubt save some money, and I think you can save more by signing up for software assurance.

      So the bottom line is that since you are already paying for a license, why do you want to pay extra for a full XP license that is doing nothing more than passing keyboard and mouse signals to the server? It makes no sense. Odds are thay any computer you have came with a license for SOME kind of Windows, and since they can all run the client, that seems the obvious choice.

      Regarding remote management, I haven't found anything in XP that isn't cheaper and better from third-party products. The only thing I would actually want Microsoft to do is freakin make an XP product that can run from a USB key or a bootable CD. That would be a valid competitor to the various thin-client projects.

      So, I don't plan on getting any of these new XP versions unless they are so ridiculously cheap that I would do it just to not have to remember if a particular computer is running 98, 98SE, ME or XP Home .

      -JoeShmoe
      .
      • Regarding remote management, I haven't found anything in XP that isn't cheaper and better from third-party products.

        What's your Group Policy/Active Directory alternative ?

    • There is a German company called Softmaker Inc. and they make a commercial but quite affordable Office alternative. It's available for both Windows and Linux.

      http://www.softmaker.de/index_en.htm/ [softmaker.de]

      I haven't used this myself, but heard people who have used it talk about the software in the highest terms. Also, it appears that MS-Office format compatibility is far better than that of OpenOffice. Also, they sell professional fonts for Linux, too, so that alone will probably make the whole thing look much bet

    • Total Cost of Ownership (Score:3, Insightful)

      by addbo ( 165128 )
      I am part of a team that runs a network with around 250 employees... currently about half of the organization is running on thin clients... the time spent administrating these clients is much less than the ones with regular desktops and laptops...

      Yes when you say $200 thin client plus CAL would probably equal an XP machine... but... we have thin clients that are around 6 or 7 years old now from compaq that are still being used... how long do desktops or laptops last?

      how long does it take you to install a

  • What is ThinStation? (Score:3, Informative)

    by klipsch_gmx ( 737375 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:16PM (#12277526)
    Thinstation is a thin client Linux distribution that makes a PC a full-featured thin client supporting all major connectivity protocols: Citrix ICA, MS Windows terminal services (RDP), Tarantella, X, telnet, tn5250, VMS term and SSH.

    No special configuration of the application servers is needed to use Thinstation!

    Thinstation can be booted from network (e.g. diskless) using Etherboot/PXE or from a local floppy/CD/HD/flash-disk. The thin client configuration can be centralized to simplify management. Thinstation supports client-side storage (floppy/HD/CD/USB) and printers (LPT/USB). Prebuilt images and a Live CD are available too!

    Mozilla Firefox and lighter browsers are supported as client-side browsers.

  • Thin clients don't work (Score:3, Insightful)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:16PM (#12277527) Homepage Journal
    How many times must hitory repeat itself?

    1 - Diskless Workstations
    2 - X-terminals
    3 - Network Computers

    None ever saw widespread popularity.

    • Why they do work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:21PM (#12277579)
      Security. Standardised software.

      Sure they don't work with sucky servers and networks, but with grunty servers, networks and reasonable software thet can work fine.

    • Re:Thin clients don't work (Score:5, Funny)

      by benchbri ( 764527 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:21PM (#12277583)
      But this time microsoft is bringing innovation...
    • How many times did attempts at flying fail until one finally succeeded? Past failures don't guarantee future failure.

      • That analogy doesn't hold up very well, because flying was failure in the sense that the device didn't work, and lite clients are working technology that failed to catch on in a market. Market failures usually do repeat themselves, unless there's a change in either the market or the product (and there hasn't been... at least not in the direction that would make them more likely to succeed).

        Not that you don't make a point, it just doesn't get very far on its own.
      • Past failures don't guarantee future failure.

        Nor do past successes guarantee future successes. For example, just how much longer can Microsoft continue charging money for their software? Eventually people will look at the Microsoft tax versus IBM+Linux or Sun+Linux+OpenSolaris and do a double-take at Microsoft's price tag. It's inevitable. It doesn't hurt that Linux and OpenSolaris not only are cheaper but are years ahead of Windows NT/2000/XP technology-wise, too.
    • I've got to say that if there was a way to tap into my 2.1 GHz machine running Windows now, that was portable, in house, I'd use it.

      Linux and X can be used for this... either way it seems that my "big" desktop is being wasted 99% of the time because I must go to it. Tablets would be ideal if they didn't try to make *them* run the software.

      If Microsoft makes it plug and play then maybe it will catch on more...

      • What about VNC/Remote Desktop for basic stuff, or perhaps using Cygwin [cygwin.com] to make yourself a pseudo-Linux server on the Windows box and do remote X apps to a tablet (running Cygwin's X Server for Windows)?

    • funny, I thought they worked pretty well in right environments.

    • Re:Thin clients don't work (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dsginter ( 104154 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:49PM (#12277826)
      None ever saw widespread popularity.

      This had nothing to do with the fact that they were thin clients. It had everything to do with the fact that they weren't Windows. Just like every other OS that has failed to attain any real market share.

    • Re:Thin clients don't work (Score:5, Informative)

      by dublin ( 31215 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:53PM (#12277860) Homepage
      How many times must hitory repeat itself?

      1 - Diskless Workstations
      2 - X-terminals
      3 - Network Computers

      None ever saw widespread popularity.

      I've run networks of literally thousands of the first two (I'll agree NCs never really took off, as they were neither fish nor fowl - running limited applications locally, but without enough power to do it well...)

      XTerms and Diskless workstations (to a lesser degree) are by far the most effective, consistent, cost-effective, and easy-to-manage computing environment I've ever run across. (And I have worked for a company that had only a dozen or so Unix Administrators supporting several thousand users in a business unit that generated a billion dollars on the bottom line. Over half of those users were on high-performance NCD or Tektronix X-terms.)

      The concept has a LOT of merit. There's really no question that it's the optimal way to set things up from a minimal managment point of view. (I've also been on the corporate staff of the world's largest vendor of remote managment solutions, and no, there's no managment tool or framework on the planet that can achieve the same leverage you can get through a well-designed X-Term deployment.)

      I'm convinced that if MIT hadn't abandoned X, but continued to develop it for multimedia support, Windows XP might never have gotten where it is. To a sad but somewhat true degree, it may have been the lack of MP3 playing ability that doomed the X-term approach...
      • I don't argue that they're easy to administer. I'm saying that give the user a choice and the user will take a dedicated CPU most time.

        I administered many an NCD back in the day. In the development environment I managed ($2 bln company), the engineers wanted a dedicated CPU on their desktop to build with. Never mind that there were 6-cpu servers shared across each 15 developers and, most days, they'd get better compile times that way. They just wanted their own dedicated CPUs. Eventually, they won out
        • You could have the best of all worlds by building a cluster. You can netboot cluster nodes, which can have an optional local volume to provide swap and/or storage. If something bad happens to the machine, it is easily replaced with another netbooting node.
    • Yeah, never saw wide deployment. We have over 3,000 remote logins to our Citrix farm a day from diskless thin clients around the world.

    • Thin clients do work (Score:3, Informative)

      by 2short ( 466733 )
      The fact that something does not see widespread popularity does not mean it does not work. I know the first two on your list worked because I used a few of them. They were not as popular as standard PCs, but in the right environment they were nice.
      In any case it's not exactly history repeating itself if the conditions are different. Typical network availability, reliability, and speed are much better now than they have been in the past. Do the current conditons mean thin clients make more sense than
    • Ever been to a bank, an airport, a car rental agency, an insurance agents office? Chances are better than 50% that they were using a diskless workstation/dumb terminal to access a mainframe/mini for their backend apps. If they weren't then they were almost assuradly using a dumb terminal emmulation app to do the same with a full fledged PC. These days some of this is being moved to web services accessing the same backends, but that just serves to slow access down but make it a bit easier to learn.

  • Hooray! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:16PM (#12277528)
    Finally, we'll be able to centralize spyware/worm/virus infections on the server, where they belong!

  • Been There, Dont That. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by spotter ( 5662 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:19PM (#12277561)
    I did that 3 years ago! Fit a linux kernel, X (vesa, so should work everywhere), dhcp and rdesktop on bootable floppy image (though the linux kernel only had one ethernet driver compiled in), basically a thin client you can take with you and would work on most computers (albiet network issues) you can find.

    people can still get the image from

    http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~spotter/floppy.bin [columbia.edu]

    though I give no warrenties for it still working, as haven't looked at it in years (and probably needs to be manually setup once it boots). though I recall it working well enough to get me an A on the project it was for.

    the idea was that this floppy would give you a full screen X (via tiny X's Xvesa) and you'd run rdesktop full screen on top of it.

  • widespread (Score:5, Informative)

    by AndreySeven ( 840823 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:22PM (#12277603)
    "Is Microsoft trying to compete with open source projects like PXES or ThinStation?"

    I used to work for a school district in Washington that deployed ThinClient systems throughout the whole district. At first the staff were whining about how they couldn't install anything(like those dumb picture screensavers) but eventually it quieted down.

    If I remember correctly, the ThinClients used Linux to connect to a server running Windows 2000, which made it the same as using a regular Windows box. there is quite a big market for these devices, so I am not surprised that MS is persuing it...

  • Are they... ? (Score:5, Funny)

    by templest ( 705025 ) <xiplst@@@gmail...com> on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:25PM (#12277626) Homepage Journal
    Is Microsoft trying to compete with open source projects like PXES or ThinStation?
    I'm reading on Brian Madden's Thin Client Web that Microsoft is about to release (don't know exactly when) two new versions of Windows XP targeting the thin-client market
    Apperantly so.

  • Sounds sensible for a change... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by VeryProfessional ( 805174 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:27PM (#12277638)

    A Windows 'Lite' (as in low resource usage, not crippled) would be perfect for many corporate environments where most users do not need or want the feature bloat present in normal versions of Windows. If this product helps companies get another couple of years out of their current workstations then I imagine this could be pretty popular.

    I don't see that this would go down very well with hardware companies though. I had always thought that there was some sort of conspiracy/cartel in place whereby the big software companies constantly bloated their products in order to drive sales of hardware. This could shake things up a bit...

    • I refurbish computer for our local school district to give away. Right now I'm getting a lot of low end P3 machines, so that's what a lot of companies are getting rid of.

      Now, to get another couple of years out of these machines it generally requires a drive replacement around this time, the BIOS is usually years out of date, and the worst of all, most of the fans are dead/dying.

      The current workstations aren't going to give another couple years. Something with no HDD or active cooling is needed.
    • "I don't see that this would go down very well with hardware companies though."

      Who cares? Ms has screwed over every single company it has ever partnered with, why should the hardware companies be exempt.

  • I don't think MS can compete (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitalride ( 767159 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:28PM (#12277641) Homepage
    Unless you have a ton of old reliable boxen to run LTSP or other thin client solutions on, thin clients are way too expensive new for what you get. Local Multi-user systems are much more efficient. Especially when running 4 people on one box, open source (free) software is the only way to avoid killer software costs, so I don't think Microsoft can compete in this arena. You can get new hardware (and all the software you need) for 3 or 4 users for less than $1000 with an open source solution. For more info on local multi-user systems, check out http://groovix.com/ [groovix.com] (that's my company, so obviously I'm biased!)
    • > Especially when running 4 people on one box, open source (free) software is the only way to avoid killer software costs

      Well if you ran 40 people on one box like Windows Terminal Service does you would have saved a lot of h/w expenses and maintenance as well.
      Besides the savings from using thin clients come from reduced cost of management (which lowers TCO) rather than savings on software licences.

      > so I don't think Microsoft can compete in this arena.

      Is that a fact?
      I would say their installed base

    • Re:I don't think MS can compete (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LDoggg_ ( 659725 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:50PM (#12277831) Homepage
      While not as nice as real thin clients, old junk machines can easily be made to be reliable with an LTSP network.

      You can get a good bootable NIC [disklessworkstations.com] for 20 bucks, remove local devices (hard drive, floppy, cdrom) and you have a pretty reliable machine.
      Sure the CPU fan or the power supply can go out on your dumpster pentium 166s, but its not like you can't just take the NIC and put it in another junk machine.

      I've outfitted a school with 60 workstations that my company has thrown away. Pentium 133s - P2 350s.

      LTSP, specifically K12LTSP [k12ltsp.org] has been the perfect solution.
      Save your money for network infrastructure, flat panel screens, and internet :)

  • Competing with Citrix (Score:5, Informative)

    by hellfire ( 86129 ) <deviladv AT gmail DOT com> on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:28PM (#12277645) Homepage
    I love how the OS community assumes it's always about them. In the thin client arena, Microsoft's main competition is Citrix Metaframe [citrix.com]. My company sells a solution that works on both citrix and terminal services. Citrix is more expensive but has more features. There are also a ton of addons and configurations that TS doesn't do yet.

    The more options MS comes up with, the more they can compete. So far our customers are buying more TS Licenses than Citrix since windows 2000 came out because it's adequate for most users who want a reasonably functional thin client solution.

    Yes, thin client options on Linux are a threat, but that's just lumped into the over all Linux beast they are tackling right now and specifically isn't anything special... yet.

    • Re:Competing with Citrix (Score:3, Interesting)

      by rigga ( 600504 )
      Im not sure that Citrix and Microsoft are competing. Citrix offers an ADD-ON to MS TS. Without Terminal Server Citrix is useless. CItrix is a suite of management and deployment tools for Microsoft Terminal Server. Microsoft loves Citrix. Why every new shiny Citrix server has a copy of MS-TS running on it. Plus for every Citrix License that you have MS gets to sell you a TS Cal. They are laughing all the way to the bank.

      RiGgA

  • And you're gonna need it, too... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Weaselmancer ( 533834 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:29PM (#12277650)

    Because according to Microsoft, that's all the PC you're using to read this is good for - because it won't run Longhorn.

  • All about .net, right? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ExileOnHoth ( 53325 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:34PM (#12277703)
    "Is Microsoft trying to compete with open source projects like PXES or ThinStation?"

    No. Microsoft never heard of PXES or ThinStation. They are absolutely desperate to deploy the .net framework more widely, so people will actually start to develop for it. They fear people will never deliberately download and try to install it on their older boxes without something like this.

    Be interesting to see how this works out for them. I won't lose sleep over it.

  • Wait. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Omni Magnus ( 645067 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:38PM (#12277729)
    Does this mean XP going to have small bugs instead of big ones?
  • I like that. Sounds kind of like "release the dogs".

  • Thin clients ... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by kabz ( 770151 )
    Sweet, lots of companies including the one I work for already run Citrix to allow scarce and expensive software packages to be accessed without having to commit a full installation to every single possible client.

    For example, I typically run Citrix to access the the SQL Navigator software, and also certain corporate applications that would necessitate me having a whole lot of configuration to do if I couldn't go through Citrix.

    Response times over a typical corporate pipe are pretty decent, and it certainl
    • One worry for MS though, if this catches on, might the ease of administration, standardised licensing etc, start to hurt full Windows sales ?

      What about the permanent full-time employment enjoyed by many thousands of Windows admins, whose job it is to troubleshoot every little problem on all the Windows desktops?
  • Can we run OpenOffice on Mönch?

  • What about OEMs?? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by malraid ( 592373 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:48PM (#12277816)
    However huge Microsoft is, they still need the OEMs, and I don't think they be very happy about this...Recycle old hardware?? A new Windows version that doesn't require a hardware upgrade to run more or less adecuate?? Time will tell,,

  • WTF.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:49PM (#12277824) Journal
    Has no one here heard of "Windows XP embedded edition"? That thing's been out for at least a year, maybe two.

    I run Hpaq t5700 thin clients. These boxes are nothing more than a Crusoe processor and a small ATA flash disk. You load the XP embedded image onto the thin client, customize it, and it's ready to go. Footprint? Under 200 MB. That sounds large for a thin client, but this is truly Windows XP with a lot of crap stripped out. IE and MSN messenger are included, as well as basic terminal emulation and other normal thin client apps. All in all, not bad for 200 MB and it does almost everything I need it to. For a more functional box you'll want to grab drivers.cab from a real XP machine, but aside from that it's ready and waiting for your apps.

    • Re:WTF.... (Score:3, Funny)

      by rhizome ( 115711 )
      >That sounds large for a thin client, but this is truly Windows XP with
      >a lot of crap stripped out. IE and MSN messenger are included,

      So what "crap" was stripped out, then?

  • Competition for SunRay (Score:5, Informative)

    by Darren.Moffat ( 24713 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:49PM (#12277828)
    This is very likely in response not just to Citrix but to Sun's SunRay [sun.com] technology which is the ultimate thinclient - there is no OS on a SunRay it is basically a remote keyboard/mouse/usb hub/audio/framebuffer-display all hanging off a network interface.

    SunRay is very heavily used in US Military applications because they really like the zero state on the desktop and no ability for state to be put there. It is even used with Trusted Solaris (which provides Mandatory Access Controls), to access Citrix services.

    SunRay also has very simple and very effective desktop mobility, pull out smartcard move to new SunRay unit plug in card, reauthenticate, and off you go.

    SunRay however does require dedicated Sun specific hardware, but that hardware is pretty cheap.

    • Not Anymore (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tony ( 765 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @09:57PM (#12277886) Journal
      Not anymore [sun.com], it doesn't. SunRay server software is now available for Linux, as well. So you can run a *cheap* SunRay lab. Get some SunRays off eBay, buy the server software (it's kinda spendy, but cheaper than the Sun hardware), and run a couple of dozen SunRays off a single server.

      They are really nice machines. Fanless. And their software is getting very capable. You can even mount USB pen drives off the back of them.

      • They are really nice machines. Fanless. And their software is getting very capable. You can even mount USB pen drives off the back of them.

        Aside from the fact that they are very slow this describes i-openers, too, and any SFF LCD PC (available from all kinds of places as point of sale systems) that netboots from, say, a Linux box. You could even run selinux on them, and get the security some people are looking for. My i-opener is an antique but it's actually fairly useful. The hardest part is finding

    • I agree here - SunRays seem to be the major contender (although admittedly I have little experience in large server situations). Our University employs SunRays for about half of student access computers, the other half being HP workstations. I really have no idea why they don't expand the SunRays - I've *NEVER* seen a SunRay out of order, but on any given day 1 of every 5 HP is down.

      It just seems to make administrative sense.

  • Not sure why they're bothering (Score:4, Informative)

    by drsmithy ( 35869 ) <drsmithy@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Monday April 18, 2005 @10:18PM (#12278034)
    You can install XP to use as a TS client on just about anything with 96MB+ RAM and a Pentium or better processor (and at my previous job we had dozens of such machines). Heck, XP runs usably *standalone* on any P2 class machine with 384MB of RAM or more.

    I really don't think there are enough "old" machines out there to justify this.

  • I have been using a Maxbook against Citrix Secure Gateway with Sprint and AT&T WWAN cards for about 8 months now. Isn't this just a rebrand of XP-Embedded? http://www.maxspeed.com/

  • What a shame (Score:2, Informative)

    by WillhelmTell ( 877173 )
    It's a shame for me as a Swiss citizen to see that Microsoft uses the names of two beautiful Swiss mountains for their software.

    WillhelmTell

  • Eiger and Monch... (Score:4, Informative)

    by jxyama ( 821091 ) on Monday April 18, 2005 @11:51PM (#12278544)
    ...are 2 mountains in Switzerland. They come in 3's, as they are a part of a famous Alpine range. So... what is Jungfrau, the 3rd mountain in the range?

  • how thin clients work for me... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Tuesday April 19, 2005 @06:50AM (#12280077) Homepage Journal
    I have XP Pro on my main CPU

    My crappy windows ME laptop has a cheapo 15" lcd attached to it, sitting out in my shed- with a g network adapter... running a 2055 hack, I can- with one of the two monitors in my shed, run a full screen XP session and a full screen windows ME session at the same time-- the ME session serves up any video stream (rdc sucks at motion video) and stat monitor on my wlan connection- the XP screen affords me power to run whatever I run....

    Consider- I can run any of my commercial software while my wife is inside running the same commercial software... one license....

    this has extended the useful life of my winme laptop immesurably-- if it powers up, and runs mstsc.exe- it's a windows xp machine...

    that's what will mess over the hardware manufacturers...

    A lotta folks are annoyed at oracle for charging a per-processor fee, and counting dual cores as two processors.... I say-- fuck em! pay for two processors, and connect to it from 50 machines!

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