Although hardware is still a key part of their businesses, top thin-client vendors are working to expand their software expertise.
April 2005 Archives
In the mid-1990s Sun and Oracle hailed thin client devices as the successors to business PCs. Today it looks as though technology has caught up with the vision. Jessica Twentyman reviews the pros and cons of replacing traditional PCs with simpler units which are cheap, versatile and easy to manage
Microsoft is developing 2 new "Server Centric Computing Clients" these clients are based on windows XP, so these will be "thin" clients for Terminal server purposes.
Novell ships new POS tweaked version of Linux and Wincor-Nixdorf is going to use it (that also means IBM would somewhat as well since they resell Wincor to degree)
Ubuntu - The latest version of the Debian offshoot includes software for creating customised CDs you can run the OS from. Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu, told ZDNet UK on Monday that the next release will include a version tailored for the thin client environment. This will allow the Linux distribution to be used on low specification PCs that don't have a hard drive. http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050411/152/fg3el.html
Garnett & Helfrich Capital, a private equity firm specializing in Venture Buyouts (VBO), announced it has acquired a controlling equity stake in the market leading thin-client vendor, San Jose, Calif.-based Wyse Technology, for $35 million. Wyse operates in all major enterprise markets around the world and sells over $175 million of software and hardware systems each year.