Nope Wyse are still kicking, and whilst it's not up to a desktop PC it
ain't far off with current technology.
I'm currently implementing VMWare View where I work, and it's an amazing
technology. Delivers your work desktop to you where-ever you happen to
be with an internet connection, basically using a really souped up RDP
session (souped up to the point that the old horse and cart is now more
like a Lambaghini).
Storage ain't a massive issue as it has a "gold image" which is
referenced by all users, and there is just a "differential" image kept
for each of the users to keep track of any changes. The differentials
are blown away every 7 days or so, but the profile information is kept
intact and stored elsewhere, so the user doesn't really notice the
difference as long as they don't do silly things like dumping data onto
C drive outside of their profile (company policy is to store all data on
the network anyway).
Now getting back to your comments, one of the packages that comes
bundled with View is Thinapp (previously Thinstall until VMWare bought
it and souped it up further), so the way we do things is all SOE apps
are on the Gold view image, and any other required software we thinapp
and stick on the network, where only those authorised to use those apps
can run them. They run beautifully (even large apps) from the network as
thinapp only streams the parts of the app to you that you need as you
need them, it doesn't need to shunt the whole thing across to your
machine, I'm sure that technology would work equally well off of a USB
stick or similar.
And the Wyse terminals (we're using S10's and V10L's) are nearly up to
scratch of having a desktop PC. Wyse have done some interesting things
with compression and the streaming of video and sound to their terminals
(the only place where they fall behind a full desktop PC), and with what
we've got now we can wack a V10L on a desk, point it to an FTP server to
pick up it's config and licensing, plug in a monitor and bang it's up
and running. Connects to the View broker, user authenticates and they
get their own personalised machine up on the screen, from where they
could watch a movie if they wanted to even though they're just sitting
at a thin client.
We've ruled out replacing all desktops with these terminals though, as
they have implications in respect to Windows licensing which we don't
encounter buying OEM PC's, and after the licensing is sorted you're
nearly paying as much as a PC anyway. Also the user experience isn't the
same as sitting at a real PC, it's nearly there, but the performance
isn't all the way there. For instance you can't just add a codec to your
master image to make everything good for new video formats, you'll find
crappy performance as Wyse will not have catered for that codec yet,
shit they've only just got flash working, and even that is a tad flakey.
Instead we'll be buying a bunch for rapid implmentations, temporary work
area set ups, overflow usage, and hot desks and so on. But the PC's will
still be there for a while yet.
Too true.