The objective of Thin Client is to provide you with an uninterrupted and safe computing at a far lesser cost. The obtrusively visible PCs are feeling the heat of competition from thin client. According to IDC India will have the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the next five years (33.7 per cent) in the Asia Pacific region. There are strong reasons to support the claim of Thin Client's spread vis-à-vis the ubiquitous personal computers, although non-networked PCs will still continue to grow. Apart from the low cost of acquisition and low running cost, the Thin Clients do not fall into frequent service-related issues because there are no moving parts inside.
Among the drivers behind adoption of thin computing security is one of them. Reports of lost laptops holding customers' personal information abound, and the possibilities for lawsuits are nearly limitless. But with thin computing, where the computing is being done on the server and data never resides on the thin client, there’s much less to worry about. And it’s tough for malware to attack a device that’s not running any application code.
“Security is one the reasons why enterprises turns to thin client. There is no data flowing on the network and encryption is not required because everything is server based,” says Rajat Mehta - Country Head - Emerging Business Unit PSG at HP India. The thin client market is bullish as compared to other traditional PC market. Thin client Form factors are changing. Earlier we used to have small desktop form factor used to be called thin client. Today we have thin clients in various formats it could be in laptop format, tablet, it can be all-in one kind of format. The connectivity options that are available in India are fast changing.
The reason for the growth of thin client being that for Enterprise it is very important now to consolidate their infrastructure so that that can start a branch in less than five to six hours compared to 10 to fifteen days earlier. Once it is centralized infrastructure it is very easy to roll out because it is very easy to connect the data centre using an IP address.
“The other reason that is going to fuel the growth of thin client is more and more companies are now open to look at cloud as an offering. Everybody has a cloud in terms of a private cloud. But in SME area we have public cloud as an offering,” says Rajat.
“There are lots of benefits: low power consumption, low maintenance/administration and of course the security is very high. Now you don’t have to secure each and every individual PC but only take care of your server environment -which may be local or hosted,” says Limesh Parekh, CEO, Enjay Network Solutions. According to Limesh, “market has been some what skeptical, but now it is improving very fast. The basic growth factor will be easy manageability and maintenance free computing environment. Especially growth of SMB/SME segment in India will fuel the growth for thin client market. One more factor is Cloud - Enjay is already launching its Google APPs based Thin Client - which is specifically for customers who make a very heavy usage of Google Apps. Also lots of virtualization is also fueling the growth of Thin Clients.”
According to Limesh, As compared to PC the adoption of thin clients is very less, but if you see the segment wise growth on YOY basis, it is phenomenal, and now people are asking from thin client on their own. Initially we had to convince people on viability of thin clients. However that has improved now.”
As per IDC, Thin Client provides 40-per cent cost advantage over the PC. And, on the face of frequent virus attacks and opportunistic malwares in the network, this particular technology can ensure a safe computing as the clients remain at the beck and call of the centrally-managed server system. As far as physical security is concerned, Thin Clients are far safer than other personal computers. Fifteen year back, when the concept of Thin Clients surfaced in the market, it was greeted with tepid welcome, of course with an initial hoopla. It was obvious to receive such treatment as the operation was slower and had a fair resistance to different software platforms.
But now the things have changed, and the lacunae with the technology have been done away with. A lot of barriers including slow network and resistance to various software applications have been rectified. At the same time, the promise of 15 years back, i.e., lower cost, better manageability, security, immunity from PC viruses, protection of corporate data, etc. is still persistent here. The net result is the Thin Client market is growing very rapidly.
“Consolidation, Opex kind of modeling and disappearance of moving parts are the man reasons for the growth of thin client. The failure rate is low. And power consumption is very low, like thon thin client typically consumes a 20 watt compared to 180 watt required by a desktop,” says Rajat.
However, According to George Paul, Executive Vice President, HCL Infosystems, it will not be fair to make any comparison between Thin Clients and PC. “We have always positioned our Thin clients as the optimum choice & solution in our selected/targeted verticals. The current generation of Thin Clients is best suited for any web based applications such as Banking, Retail, BPO/KPO and more importantly Cloud based ones. In India, thin clients market looks promising and demand has been gradually generating from different verticals,” says HCL. “With Cloud being the latest buzz, cloud based solutions are being adapted in enterprises in large scale and this has actually triggered the demand for thin clients,” says George.
As interest in desktop virtualization is gaining ground, so do opportunities for thin clients. Although a user doesn't have to step into desktop virtualization to be a candidate for thin clients, thin-client computing fits hand in glove with desktop virtualization.
Thin-Client Computing for Channels & SMEs
Thin-client computing is definitely an area of interest to SMEs, because it enables them to roll out new applications to employees faster and with fewer IT resources. SMEs can easily support more users while lowering costs and optimizing the critical applications on which they rely. “The reception of SMEs in India to thin client has been position. However it is yet to reach the explosion stage. In my opinion, 2011 to 2013 will be the SME year where they will go big time in virtualization,” says Rajat.
According to Rajat, with the increasing adoption of cloud computing, the channel community will go for a transformation. Every five years the channel finds out a value system and starts doing a value business. In 1990s they were happy with the normal servers. Now, they are talking of blade server, blade storage and virtualization. In the coming five years one will probably find bigger partner offerings on the go subscription based desktop services to the customers especially in the SME sector. “Instead of selling hardware boxes they will be selling service. It can be software as a service. With the increasing demand for cloud computing, the channel partners will be making merry. It will be a golden time for them. Their dependence on vendors will go off on the contrary will be more dependent on their skill sets.” says Rajat. According to George, “Today most of Channel partners are providing SI solutions on their own. With education segment is big driver of thin client growth in India for the last few years and with more and more institutions are going in for TC based LAB's & web based applications. Moreover, SMB/SME are going in for ERP implementations, channel communities will play a major role in taking thin clients to smaller cities and towns where the growth is going to be very high.”
If you say SME per se, today cash flow is the money if you are able to rotate you cash properly you can use negative cash to make money. That’s what Apple taught to the world and the SMEs are taking a leaf from it. The moment you look at thin computing, all of a sudden your calculation from COPEX becomes OPEX. Hence, instead of doing a capital investment the SMEs are looking at the Opex kind of modelling where they are to lease out their equipment.
Thin-client Challenges
The vendors are making all efforts to erase every last vestige of performance or functionality difference between Thin Client and traditional PC. “In fact a thin client can do everything a desktop can do,” says Rajat. According to Rajat, the limitation of thin client is that “the moment you put a thin client, there appears a behaviour change within the organization. You are somewhere restricting the user's access to the system. So while it is very good from administration's point of view that everything is monitored but users have a little hindrance. So it is incumbent upon the customer to employ toughest people to do the proof of concept, so that they understand the whole system thus advocating the technology within the organization.” George says, “The second Generation of Thin Clients or Hybrid Thin Clients has managed to overcome some limitations such as processing power, local storage, etc. Our HCL WINBee Series thin Clients are powered by Intel Atom 1.6GHz/ VIA 1.6GHz processors and have options for secondary storage also. The current generation of Thin Client with high processing power have managed to replace FAT Clients in ERP implemented enterprises, BFSI and KPO setup's.” Limesh says, “If we consider enterprise computing environment, there is no limitation of thin client, however it cannot be used in home segment / Gaming / Graphics rich appls etc.”
Finally...
The enterprises spend a sizable amount to support and maintain PCs, which can be curtailed by a huge margin with Thin Clients. “As far as office productivity and BPO and IT/ITES environment is concerned, it is a very good option,” says Rajat. The cost of ownership of PCs might be coming down drastically, but the running and maintaining cost is becoming very high. Therefore, companies are seriously evaluating alternative opportunities to keep a control on their wallets. Concepts like thin clients, blade PCs, PC virtualization, etc. are gaining grounds in the enterprise computing. Out of these upcoming technologies, thin client appears, so far, to be cost effective. Unlike its sibling fat client (PC), thin client is also a desktop computer, but every bit of application, database and control comes from a central server. It does not carry any moving components, i.e. HDD, CD-R, FDD, etc. It even does not carry any software application. Therefore, the net result is no system crash, no virus attack and very little system cost. Added to this, manageability of the data becomes easier and cheaper.
Some years ago, TCO was considered to be the overriding consideration for migrating from a PC estate to a thin-client architecture. However, in due course of time, it has been found that the adoption of thin client is gaining momentum, thanks to the factors like manageability and easier virus protection. Apart from the organizations, a geographically distributed company is most likely to gain from the uptake of thin client architecture.
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