Is It Time for Diskless PCs? (continued)
"While people may understand the total cost of ownership [TCO] savings," says Brian Madden, an independent consultant based in Silver Spring, Md. "Moving to diskless PCs requires investing in new software and technologies, and doing things in ways that are completely different from what they've done in the past"
Several challenges have impeded the mainstream deployment of network PCs. For starters, because a network connection is required at all times, this type of hardware tends not to work for companies with a large number of mobile employees who are frequently away from the office, or who habitually take laptops home to work. Likewise, not all applications have the architecture to operate on thin-client hardware. "Diskless PCs require either a server-based computing backend, or some kind of streaming solution," says Madden. Finally, many software vendors have yet to establish licensing arrangements that are compatible with use of diskless PCs.
Thin Clients Gain Weight
However, in addition to lower TCO, there are three key advantages to moving to diskless PCs that are responsible for increased interest in the technology:
- Access for all If anything goes wrong with a piece of hardware, a user can just move over to the next cubicle and start right up where he or she left off with no loss of productivity. "You're talking seconds rather than hours for getting a user up and running on new hardware after a crash," says Seidner. (article continues)
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