In focus Thin clients : Thinking Thin

Thin is in not only in the world of fashion, but in the world of IT as well.
Customers across the board want products that are thin, in terms of their size
as well as the resources they absorb to function. They want products which have
smaller footprint on their tables and more importantly use software and hardware
resources sparingly, as this translates into better savings for them. This is
why the concept of thin clients in recent times has seen wider acceptance
amongst business houses.

Loosely defined, a thin client is a computer that depends heavily on the
server to fulfill its traditional computational roles as against most computing
devices which have programs and applications built into their system whereby
tasks can be run directly on them. It does not have any storage capability and
all the software applications are derived from the server and run from the
server itself. This ensures that the thin client is low on processing power and
hence consumes approximately 80 percent lesser power compared to desktops.

Before the advent of the personal computer mainframe computers powered 'dumb
terminals,' which were reliable, affordable, and centrally controlled. The
adoption of PCs by organizations as their main computing platform was driven by
the variety of software being written for the PC but resulted in the difficult
tasks that most organizations are familiar with today: installing, managing, and
maintaining individual computers," said Mubin Mir, Product Manager, Sify
Technologies.

Figures Speak Louder

According to the IDC APAC Quarterly Thin Client Tracker report, the thin
client market in APAC excluding Japan (APEJ) region totaled 4,19,000 units in
1H09, representing a healthy increase of 15.5 percent over 1H08. IDC believes
that spurred by continuous developments and improvements in desktop
virtualization applications, thin clients are also now able to gain a foothold
in a significantly broader range of markets compared to the past. IT managers
are increasingly starting to acknowledge that the long-term cost savings
associated with a virtual desktop are maximized when the access point is
converted into a thin client type device.

An indigenous manufacturer of thin clients in India, Surendranagar-based
Apurva Computer Technologies, claims that the growth it has witnessed is much
higher than this industry average. "Accordingly to me the installation of thin
clients in India increased by more than 200 percent. We have sold around 5,000
units of our Smart Station thin clients," shared Manish Dave, Director, Apurva
Computers Technologies.

Growth Factors

The thin client can find utility it almost all business verticals, spanning
from ITeS, government, BFSI to education. On a global level, despite the
financial crisis impact on capex, IDC believes that the financial services
segment pulled ahead of the other verticals in terms of thin client deployments,
capturing almost half of all thin client sales in 1H09, as banks in China
procured strongly from both domestic and multinational thin client suppliers in
2Q.

"Public segment fulfillments, driven largely by education sector, grew 47
percent over 2H08, and was the second largest segment in 1H09, with 23.3 percent
of all thin client volume in APEJ," said Reuben Tan, Senior
Manager-Asia/Pacific's Personal Systems Group, IDC. Typically thin client power
consumptions are often very less (on an average just 10 percent of a PC) and
they have smaller form-factors. These parameters coupled with the fact that they
are more secure as data can't be stored on them, which also brings down their
downtime; BFSI is the key adopter of this technology in India.

Even the government has contributed their bit by sponsoring educational
initiatives such as Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan and have opted for thin clients in
several rural districts because of the tremendous energy savings.

"Nowadays education is the biggest vertical opting for thin clients, along
with the corporate and industrial houses. In recession this technology is
helpful in reducing the operating cost of a machine and thereby the entire
network. Hospitals and banking sector

are also playing major role in adopting thin client technology," added Dave.
Agreeing with him, Mir said that the BFSI has pulled ahead of the other
verticals in terms of thin client deployments. "Even the IT/ITES, BPO companies,
retails and government sector are moving their base towards thin clients," he
added.

Why Opt for Thin Clients?

There are many reasons to opt for thin clients. Foremost amongst it is the
lowered IT administration cost as thin clients are managed almost entirely at
the server. This ensures that the incidence of failure is minimal. Security,
which is another major concern for most organizations, is also better equipped
in a thin client as no application data resides on it. This means that it is
resistant to malware and there is minimal risk of physical data theft. Managing
a thin client is equally easy as any component that fails can be easily swapped
with minimal interference to the user, since all the data is hosted on the
server.

Thin clients are also cheaper than desktops because it does not contain a
disk, application memory, or a processor. Since most of the application upgrades
are done at the server level this also means that customers can save on software
upgradation costs across various nodes. There are several players in the thin
client space in India, who are present in it either in the hardware or the
software component area. These include Citrix, Microsoft, HP, Fujitsu- Siemens,
Sun, Wyse, NEC, IGEL, Novatium, CLI, Devon IT, Propalms, IBM and HCL. Some of
the local vendors include Enjay Networks, Vardhaman Technology and Apurva
Computer Systems.

The presence of so many vendors, especially with the bug ticket names, shows
that this is a technology which offers lot of growth potential for solution
providers. Besides, unlike the strait laced hardware trading business, solution
providers can enjoy better margins in thin clients as they can offer pre-sales,
deployment and maintenance services to their customers. At the moment the market
is not crowded with several partners, which gives the select few more leeway to
make better margins. But as the technology becomes more prevalent, more channel
partners will be drawn towards it, which will make it a highly competitive
ground.

Minakshi Shetty

minakshis@cybermedia.co.in