Thin client giant starts shipping terminals with performance and flexibility of desktops

Wyse Technology has introduced new products that combine the manageability of thin client terminals with the performance and flexibility of a Windows PC. This offers users a full desktop experience, but within a centrally managed thin computing environment, the firm said.

Wyse Streaming Manager (WSM), available immediately, serves up Windows XP or Windows 2000 to a new class of thin client device that ships without any built-in operating system. Applications are also delivered separately as required, simplifying deployment.

David Angwin, senior marketing manager for Wyse in Europe, said the new architecture removes some previous limitations of thin client environments, such as poor performance for multimedia applications and voice over IP (VoIP).

"For years, the approach to centralised applications has been screen-casting, where you run the application on a server, take its display output and push that out to a terminal," said Angwin, adding that this gives users less flexibility.

With WSM and the new V00 terminals, firms are essentially getting a highly managed PC with no local storage. The operating system is delivered at boot-up, and each user sees a taskbar showing the applications they are authorised to access. When an application is launched, only the portions of it that are needed get streamed to the device, Angwin said.

As part of WSM, administrators get an image creation tool to prepare operating systems for network deployment, and an application packager to do likewise for applications. A web-based admin console also forms part of the system.

"The key benefit is that there are fewer images to manage [than with desktop PCs], because the operating system and applications are packaged separately, Angwin said. Users get access to applications based on their role and user profile.

Another benefit of the new architecture is that patch management only needs to be carried out once on the packaged image of Windows, according to Angwin. WSM also features a licence management feature that limits the number of instances of an application to the number of licences to help firms comply with their contracts.
WSM will typically cost £155 per seat, Wyse said. The V00 thin clients cost from £271.