Occasionally I come across something that just seems totally unbelievable. I received such an email earlier today. A company called NComputing is about to make a big push in the UK with what appears to be a thin client device, screen, keyboard and mouse plus software to turn existing PCs into a server farm...all for £35 per client.
A quick scout of the NComputer site and it seems the company offers low cost computing for schools, small business users and in the developing world.
The device looks pretty basic, but for the first time in ages I feel here is something that may really make a big difference...if it actually works. Has anyone had any experience with the NComputing devices?
Comments (4)
Hi Cliff
Big smile today as I stumbled across your blog because I remember you from the EXE days in the early 90's when you edited and published some of my articles.
What a great mag that was but I am really glad to see you personally are doing well and wish you all the best. I will subscribe to this blog, best wishes.
Kevin
(the fuzzyman cometh)
Posted by Kevin Yeandel | July 8, 2007 4:10 PM
Posted on July 8, 2007 16:10
£35 unbelievable - it is! Because it's not £35!
You also need keyboard mouse speakers and of course monitor. Nevertheless, it's a lot less than £200-£300 box.
Only suitable for low power applications too, but in some places it could be a cracking solution.
www.ncomputing.com
The $100 laptop may be an alternative.
Do you know of any UK interest? The phone number outside of the US is in Korea!
Andy.
Posted by Andy | July 11, 2007 6:36 PM
Posted on July 11, 2007 18:36
As an IT Manager in a large secondary school I feel the need to point out my disagreement with the comment that Thin Client architectures are suitable to a school environment.
Having investigated (and worked with a number) of thin client systems in schools I must say they are holey inadequate for the job of providing the requirements that need to be met in modern-day educational IT provision.
With the applications we use on a daily basis in my school ranging from Adobe Premier Pro, Dreamweaver CS3 and Photoshop CS3 through to 3D CAD and modelling applications, audio creation and editing suites such as Cubase and Virtual Learning Environments we have always found it much more suitable to deploy full desktop machines.
With my recent experience in a primary school of a new HP thin client system (I forget which one) struggling to accommodate 20 clients running a single application each makes me wonder if any of these ‘analysts’ have ever experienced the computing needs of a modern school.
Posted by Barny | July 18, 2007 2:18 PM
Posted on July 18, 2007 14:18
Thin Client has never been very good at running video or really memory hungry applications either. Premier Pro isn't great on a decent spec PC and you'd be mad to run it on a Thin Client the same can be said of Photoshop and cubase. But Virtual Learning Environments should only use a web browser so you wouldn't even use Thin Clients for this. Dreamweaver should run a certain 3d Modeling programs and CAD would work fine. As a Network manager at a school I can say 70% of applications can work effortlessly over a Thin Client system. Music, Art and DT are different I believe with the right spec servers CAD and Dreamweaver would work fine. It depends what the Primary school was running that single application you mention could be a memory or processor hog then of course you'd need some thing significantly more powerful as a server to run it. Thin Clients can do the job they are supposed to but they aren't a Panacea for IT in schools. This needs to be understood first before making the decision.
Posted by Wes | November 28, 2007 10:33 AM
Posted on November 28, 2007 10:33