* The implications of thin clients
I’ve talked quite a bit about browser-based clients (aka rich Web clients) in the context of messaging and some of the advantages that they offer over traditional clients – portability, reduced IT management deployment and maintenance costs, etc. Traditional clients, of course, also offer a number of advantages and will continue to be the primary means of accessing corporate e-mail systems, but thin clients will gain share as both a replacement for and adjunct to traditional clients.
What are the implications of thin clients – including Web-based applications – beyond the benefits noted above? One of the most important implications is that place and local infrastructure become much less relevant. For example, if my messaging and application workspace is completely virtual, it makes no difference where I do my work – on my desktop machine, on a laptop in an airport, on a ferry crossing Puget Sound, etc. or at my desktop computer.
Hoteling (the practice of providing office space on an as-needed basis like a hotel room), which began at Chiat/Day 12 years ago, is increasingly used by organizations large and small, since it replaces expensive office and cubicle space with much less expensive technology solutions. This makes the place at which an employee does his or her work much less important and allows employers to maximize the efficiency of physical space, reducing the cost of doing business.
Another implication is that the platform on which users do their work becomes less relevant. While I know there are differences between Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari and that some applications designed for one won’t work on the others, a browser-based e-mail application, for example, really doesn’t depend very much on the platform from which you access it. That means that Mac and Linux users, not to mention users who access corporate applications on a mobile device, will have less difficulty doing work in a corporate environment.
While the decision about which operating system to use will continue to be an important one for many years to come, browser-based e-mail and other applications will continue to expand options for organizations.
For users, a clear implication of the rich Web client approach is that all information, tools and other resources are available all the time, meaning that infrastructure becomes more flexible. For example, instead of having to take a laptop to a meeting and potentially having to place it in my checked baggage, I can use any computer at my destination to retrieve and use everything I need. That’s an increasingly important consideration for travelers in the wake of the foiled terrorist plot in August of this year.
