Patent ID: 7769833

Claim:
A method for shifting a terminal from a non-thin client state to a thin client state, within a network system including a management device, a sever and a plurality of terminals including the terminal, the method comprising: collecting, at the management device, information on status of each of the plurality of terminals; referring to the information collected, and designating, at the manager device, a terminal as a designated terminal which is to be made operable as a thin client terminal; transmitting, via a terminal instructing unit included within the management device, a shift start message toward the designated terminal, the shift start message for demanding the designated terminal to shift from the non-thin client state to the thin client state; judging, at the designated terminal, in response to receiving of the shift start message, whether or not data stored in the designated terminal can be transferred to a server; transferring, by a data transferring unit included within the designated terminal, the data stored in the designated terminal toward the server in response to the judging indicating that the data stored in the designated terminal can be transferred to a server; deleting, at the designated terminal, the data in the designated terminal after completion of the transferring; and causing, by a thin client shifting unit and the server, the designated terminal to function as a thin client.