Re: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps

[Alan C <steelville@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thin clients...

> What about "Thin Clients" on the manufacturing floor?
>  How about a device with the footprint the size of a textbook, no moving  
> parts, just a few ports for connecting monitor, keyboard, mouse,  barcode 
> reader, etc., with a specialized edition of Linux, and just a  few programs, 
> including Firefox browser, all loaded into some sort of  flash memory, which is 
> only updated from a server?      Low maintenance.  Nathan Andelin
I think thin clients are underrated, and they're going to catch on in 
ever increasing numbers and impact.

Naturally IBM, HP, Microsoft, all the heavies on the block prefer 
selling gobs of big-disk PC's for the obvious reasons.

But thin clients used properly could have most of the benefits of the 
5250 screens plus the benefits of the GUI's where appropriate.

The 24x80 and the 27x132 grid has worked wonders, but I find myself 
yearning for getting more on a screen,

But I agree also that especially for heads down data entry, where that's 
still done, you have to have a keyboard-based system, meaning set it all 
up so they can use the keys for everything. That includes the cursors 
for scrolling, and the rest.

Once a shop got the hang of interfacing to thin clients, using Linux can 
be cost effective for your programming, Linux plus browser, even loading 
Java back on a more powerful server behind it (like an i5, eh). Your 
counter guys can show the customer the new models of the new 
widget-maker while placing the order, or the salesman, all that.

I think they're going to replace out the 5250s over time, eventually. 
Sigh. And for companies in general, somebody mentioned that the best 
talent will be going into new areas. I think that some of the best and 
brightest of us are still pounding out those green screens (ahem) 
because it is taking real slow to reach critical mass, but it'll come 
soon enough.

Might be more work for upgraded RPG programmers too, what's wrong with 
that? Put pretty pix with your apps! We really should be doing more than 
dishing out Excel spreadsheets to our users, because they need to see 
the beauty in our meat and potatoes apps! :-)  And I'm not just talking 
about browsers, although users are now used to that, but Java interfaces 
are fine too as long as you can get them running fast enough!

--Alan