Back to the 1997 tech planning survey Includes complete survey results. Network computing audio primer Five-minute explanation of different approaches to network computing. Emmett is a freelance writer in Wallingford, Pa. She can be contacted at ArielleEm @aol.com.

NCs for naught?

By Arielle Emmett
Network World, 12/15/97

The future doesn't bode quite as well for thin clients - be they NCs or network PCs. Although technology planners are closely divided on the potential benefits of thin clients, only 26% of respondents plan to implement them. Those pesky users may bear part of the blame - 73% of those surveyed said users will refuse to give up their PCs in return for stability and reliability.

"We have no plans to use thin clients, just full-blown PCs,'' says Taylor of the state of Virginia. "We're using a lot of applications that require the end user to have his own microprocessor.''

Thin clients approach a risky technology model that many academic IT organizations can do without, says Virginia Western Community College's Harrison.

"We don't want to be on the bleeding edge, and we don't want to hold the sword that does the bleeding,'' he says. "We want proven technologies.''

However, NT fan Thompson, of Bearish and Associates, is enthusiastic about NT's forthcoming support for Citrix's Winframe because it lets users of disparate platforms connect to Windows applications on servers. He says thin clients could come on strong for certain vertical applications such as data entry or billing inquiries.

The bottom line to technology planning is everything is driven by applications, concludes Deloitte's Cunningham. "Managers need to understand the application development cycle to understand what's happening on their networks. You can't make a decision in one without the other.''

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