Thin client or diskless PC?

IT Week will shortly begin testing Wyse Streaming Manager (WSM), a system that serves up the operating system and applications to thin client terminals.

Wyse has kindly supplied us with a pre-built server for use in our tests, along with a Winterm V00 terminal – a device so 'thin' it doesn't even have any firmware, just a small amount of bootstrap code in its network adapter and enough RAM to run Windows.

The key features of WSM are that the OS and applications are packaged up and streamed separately, so that workers get access to what they need according to their user profile. It also means that every user can be running from a single server-based image of Windows, making deployment much easier for IT departments.

Wyse gave us a brief demo, and we found it weird to see Windows XP booting up on a device smaller than some books, and without the frantic hard disk thrashing noise that usually accompanies this process.

In the next few weeks, I'll be finding out how easy it is to package up applications for delivery across the LAN from the WSM server.

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