Re: Thin clients

[Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

gosh, when one buys a cheapy PC one does not get MS Office.  Those 
machines do everything the buyers want done.  But I see now that I am 
confusing "thin client" with "stand-alone device"


Pete Helgren wrote:
> I guess they could and then in that case you would need the hypervisor 
> and VM's on some kind of flash memory.  I think that this would be of 
> limited use though.  In the mass market, I doubt thin client 
> technologies will ever replace traditional OS's in the near future 
> primarily because no one yet provides a package, over the Internet or by 
> other means, that can meet consumer needs.  I DO see thin client apps, 
> even those in a VM, gaining popularly over time for business because of 
> the IT headaches it can save.  Given the ever growing bloat and 
> complexity of both OS and desktop applications, I can't see that the 
> current path of software development for OS and desktop applications can 
> persist.
>
> Could this happen using today's technology?  No.  Nobody has a OS-less 
> hypervisor and there isn't a software package I know of that runs purely 
> on the hypervisor layer in a VM.
>
> Pete
>
>
> Booth Martin wrote:
>   
> > To get to my idea: Think Wal-Mart.  Wal-Mart could go to a firm in China 
> > and say "We will buy 500,000 devices over 2 years that do what a PC 
> > does, with no software.  It has to all be in the hardware.  Flash cards 
> > will be the memory method.   The target selling price for the device 
> > will be under $200 for the device.  There will be *no* moving parts."  
> > Could it happen with today's technology?
> >
> >   
> >