“While many industry observers remain skeptical about Linux on
the desktop, IT professionals like Phillipe Welsh are equally
skeptical about conventional fat-client implementations. “We have
to give our users all the desktop tools they need to do their
jobs,” he says. “But there’s no reason to go broke in the
process.”
“Welsh, who works at Cassens Transport, a trucking company
in Edwardsville, Ill., has deployed diskless PCs on his users’
desktops. All desktop apps are accessed from workgroup Linux
servers running VistaSource Inc.’s Applixware software suite, which
includes word processing and spreadsheet tools. Welsh says the
thin-client solution is extremely cost-effective and easy to
manage. “We can support 17 simultaneous users with full GUI
application functionality using a 233-MHz Pentium II server,” he
says. “That’s a very low-end machine.” Desktop hardware costs are
also kept to a minimum, since users don’t need hard drives or
constant RAM/CPU upgrades.”
“Like other IT managers who have taken an open source approach,
Welsh says many companies are missing the boat because they’ve
bought into a mindset that has failed to change with the times. He
says many managers latched on to PC computing as a counter-reaction
to IBM’s heavily centralized architecture. But Welsh says all the
administration associated with client/server computing simply
replaced one set of burdens with another.”