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January 21, 2005

Thinner Clients Coming From Wyse

Wyse released the Winterm 5150SE thin client in January and said it will ship the Winterm S50 model in February.

Thursday January 20, 07:01 PM


Wyse plans thinner clients

By Daniel Robinson

Thin client specialist Wyse Technology has announced new Linux-based terminal devices and outlined plans to make its thin clients even simpler to deploy and operate, to help firms provision terminals appropriate to the tasks for which they will be used. This is part of Wyse's ongoing strategy to make thin clients a more cost-effective alternative to PC desktops.

Wyse released the Winterm 5150SE thin client in January and said it will ship the Winterm S50 model in February. Both are based on Wyse Linux version 6. The new models are customisable and offer increased flexibility for mixed environments that include both Linux and Windows host application servers, according to the firm.

David Angwin, senior marketing manager for Wyse in Northern Europe, said the 5150SE will be attractive to companies that need a more capable terminal than Wyse's entry-level models, and noted that at £239 +VAT it is cheaper than high-end devices running Windows XP Embedded. "It also benefits from good driver support because of Linux on the PC," Angwin said.

The S50 is a Linux version of the S30, which also began shipping this month. Both models are based on faster processors than earlier Winterm models yet are much simpler and more compact.

Wyse plans to ship these models with no built-in operating system in the near future, allowing large organisations to provision the devices as they see fit. This will also enable firms to switch their terminals between Linux, Windows CE, Windows XP Embedded, and Wyse's own Blazer platform, depending on which apps they use.

"It allows firms to manage thin clients as assets that can be re-usable," said Curt Schwebke, vice-president of Wyse. This will be enabled by a new version of the firm's Rapport management suite, set to ship in the third quarter of 2005. Under the control of Rapport, a terminal will install its operating code from a server when first connected to the network, and an administrator can use Rapport to re-boot it with a different software image whenever necessary.

Schwebke said the moves will make Wyse a more network-centric supplier. "Rapport is being re-architected as a service concept within the network infrastructure, which is necessary to expand the number of concurrent nodes it can manage."

The barriers discouraging firms from adopting thin clients are gradually disappearing as corporate network infrastructure is upgraded and applications are inc- reasingly hosted on servers instead of the desktop, Schwebke said.

Posted by editor at January 21, 2005 02:22 PM