By Sean Doherty Promoted as a struggle between thick versus thin and fat versus skinny on the desktop, the battle between PCs and thin-client devices wasn't much of a fight. But for the rematch, promoters need to look beyond the desktop. Purchasing thin-client devices isn't about replacing PCs. It's about server-based computing and application deployment for a wide variety of devices. In server-based computing, Microsoft Windows applications run on central servers, and the results are displayed on remote devices.
Users see only screen prints of their applications from PCs, thin clients and handheld devices.
Such devices are portals to servers where applications run and data is stored. Thin clients interact with server-based applications to display data from the server and redirect input and output. By the late 1990s, this architecture took a 3 percent toehold in the networking market. We first looked at this as a passing fad, but by the end of the century server-based computing had a leg up with 23 percent share and found a place in most Fortune 100 companies. Rather, enterprises seek PCs with staying power.