| Intel and Microsoft are spearheading several
counterattacks against thin clients. Some of these attacks
seem contradictory and make it appear that the two
industry leaders are positioning themselves for every
possible outcome — including the success of thin clients.
Not a bad betting strategy. Their initial reaction was to ridicule the thin-client idea. High-visibility personalities — including Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, Intel CEO Andy Grove, and Microsoft vice president Nathan Myhrvold — used industry forums and interviews to bash the notion that simpler, less expensive computers could replace PCs. At times, their protests were so strident that they appeared technically inept. The founders of the PC industry should know the difference between a dumb terminal and a computer. Although that propaganda line continues, Intel and Microsoft are also taking more credible steps to defend PCs. Recognizing that total cost of ownership is a genuine issue, they're striving to make PCs easier to manage. Their most recent initiatives are the NetPC, Zero Administration for Windows (ZAW), and Wired for Management. In addition, both companies are hedging their bets by providing technology for thin clients behind the scenes. Intel's and Microsoft's most ironic counterattack is the NetPC. While both companies loudly criticize NCs as "stripped-down PCs," their own NetPC proposal fits that description more literally than the Oracle/Sun NC. Simply put, a NetPC is a PC without a floppy drive. It will most likely have a hard drive, but for caching purposes only; a NetPC keeps copies of all user files, configuration data, and software on a server. (Sound familiar? NCs with hard drives work the same way.) Also, administrators can "lock down" NetPCs to prevent users from tampering with system settings. The main difference between a NetPC and an Oracle/Sun NC is that NetPCs adhere to the industry-standard PC system architecture, while NCs are entirely new designs. Microsoft's proposed NetPC specification calls for a 100-MHz Pentium CPU, 16 MB of RAM, and Windows. A NetPC mainly runs Windows software, offering Java compatibility as a bonus — a stark contrast to Java-centric NCs. The mechanism that allows NetPCs (and regular PCs) to "reflect" (i.e., duplicate) their state on a server will be Microsoft's ZAW. It'll be built into Windows NT Server 5.0 later this year, with client software added to the desktop versions of NT 5.0 and Windows 97. ZAW is a collection of components — not a single product — partly based on Active Directory (Microsoft's advanced directory services) and the Microsoft Management console. It will let users share systems and let administrators automatically distribute software updates. "ZAW frees up administrators to focus on the administration tasks they really need to spend time on, such as supporting end users or spending more time planning infrastructure," says Victor Raisys, lead product manager for Microsoft's systems-management products. Wired for Management is an Intel initiative (backed by Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, and others) whose goal is to reduce the cost of PC ownership by 15 percent within a year. Intel is attacking the problem on three fronts: by adding new features to hardware and software so that administrators can remotely control PCs and servers; by developing new management tools for remote installation, configuration, and management; and by integrating PC management into enterprise systems. (BYTE's working on in-depth coverage of these and other solutions for next month's issue.) Meanwhile, Microsoft and Intel are not ignoring the possibility that thin clients might take off. Microsoft licenses Windows NT to Citrix Systems (see the text box "Windows Everywhere, Thanks to Citrix" on page 68), which resells and sublicenses a multiuser version of the OS for thin clients (see the main text for details). Microsoft has also invested in Citrix and in WebTV, a company that designs and licenses under-$500 Web-browser computers for the consumer market. Intel has been working with Oracle to develop an NC reference system with a Pentium-100 processor. But officially, both Intel and Microsoft discourage alternatives to traditional PCs. Copyright 1994-1998 BYTE |