Fat PCs, according to San Jose, Calif.-based Dataquest, are only growing at 15 percent a year, but total shipments were well over 100 million units in 2000. It's easy to see why information technology diets are gaining popularity. Thin clients are cheaper, less complex, more reliable, and easier to administer than traditional PCs. The total cost of ownership for a thin client is anywhere from 15 to 70 percent less than a PC, depending on the situation. Just like people, however, machines can't be so thin that they can't work.
Thin clients are best suited to single-transaction tasks, such as call centers or event ticketing.
For some businesses, such tasks can be 75 percent of the total deployment. Thin clients can also be successful in general office work, where people access corporate data but also create memos and presentations. Some jobs, in contrast, involve a multitude of tasks performed by knowledge workers using spreadsheets and doing graphics work. Here, thin clients fail. The desktops where thin clients can flourish have increased steadily as software and hardware vendors have improved their offerings.