The Hindu Business Line : Fat's out

Companies today prefer thin models on the office ramp. Say hello to `thin clients', machines that have few features and let employees do just their assigned tasks.

NO frills or flounces, nothing extra, just what is required. That would describe Priya's computer.

Priya, who works in a business process outsourcing (BPO) company, is provided with a colour monitor, a keyboard, a mouse and a modem. But the system in her small cubicle cannot play multimedia devices or floppy or compact disc drives. Priya carries out the tasks her company wants her to do — log on to the machine, work on the accounting package for 8-10 hours, and log out.

Welcome to the era of the thin client, a server-based computing solution that provides employees with just the essentials they require. A central server stores all the data and does most of the processing. Employees can access data whenever required from the server. But nothing much is stored on their own system. This is essentially what a thin client is all about.

As a concept, it is not new. Thin clients emerged in the late 1980s with the launch of Citrix Systems WinView, a multi-user product for IBM OS/2. But they didn't catch on right away. For one thing, thin client systems were seen as slow. Users were not comfortable with the idea that their system did not have a hard drive of its own. Also, IT managers felt performance would suffer in a server-based network.

But the concept has bounced back. In the 1990s, this architecture took a 3 per cent hold on the global networking market. By the end of the century, server-based computing had a 23 per cent share and found place in most Fortune 100 companies, says a Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT) report on thin clients.

Today, server-based computing is a mature industry that includes many thin client devices with network and bandwidth management solutions and wireless-connectivity options, it says.

The reasons for thin clients' revival are many, including frequent virus attacks on PCs, or fat clients as they are called, and the fact that thin clients spell cost savings of around 40 per cent compared to the PC.

IDC says the enterprise thin client market is set to more than double its unit volume shipments worldwide in the next few years, growing from just over 3 million units in 2002 to 7.6 million units in 2006.

In India, the thin client market is expected to grow at a very brisk pace in the next couple of years. The volumes for thin clients may not be large, but the growth rate will exceed that of fat clients, say industry sources.

There is marked demand from the government, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) and BPO sectors. Some are migrating from PCs to thin clients, and some are buying new terminals. Recently, a large insurance firm ordered about 10,000 thin clients. Orders have also come from a couple of High Courts. Industry watchers say these are just the beginning, with more large orders to follow.

There will be a requirement of about 2-3 lakh thin clients in India in the next couple of years, says Devraj C. Sathyadevan, Senior Project Manager, VXL Instruments, a thin client manufacturer.

According to R. Srinivasan, General Manager, Marketing and Support, HCL Peripherals, there are numerous benefits — both tangible and intangible — in going for thin clients. Unlike fat clients, thin clients occupy less space and are cost-effective (available at less than Rs 15,000 as compared to a minimum of Rs 25,000 for a PC). With applications sitting in the servers, thin clients are free of virus, a major problem in a PC-driven environment, he says.

The rising demand for thin clients is visible at the HCL Peripherals factory in Pondicherry. Currently, it manufactures about 12,000 thin clients a month as against 80 to 90 two years ago. Last year, the highest monthly production was 990 pieces in March. To meet demand, it added a new manufacturing line with 80 employees, and hopes to increase monthly production to around 15,000, says a company official.

There is only 60-70 per cent resource utilisation in a PC. Some users hardly use the floppy or CD drives or multimedia applications. Some may not use features such as Word or Acrobat. "All these are a waste of money when a user does not need them but his system has them installed," says Srinivasan.

Thin clients are devices for specific applications. They are deployed in the network for routine transactions/data processing In such a context, using a full-fledged PC is not warranted.

"Deploying thin clients over fat clients spells a 30-40 per cent cost reduction for companies," says Srinivasan. The company's thin client customers include the Tata group, Indian Overseas Bank and Britannia. It also has presence in neighbouring countries, including Sri Lanka.

However, it is also true that a thin client cannot replace a fat client, which offers its own advantages.

Devraj of VXL Instruments, which has a manufacturing unit in Bangalore, says with the use of enterprise-wide applications such as ERP (enterprise resource planning), companies do not want to give additional access devices (multimedia) or operations (browsing the Net) to employees on their terminals. This results in better employee productivity, he says. VXL manufactures 10,000 to 12,000 terminals a month at its Bangalore facility.

According to MAIT, which represents 92 per cent of the Indian hardware sector (by turnover), currently thin clients cost Rs 10,000-Rs 12,000. This needs to come down to Rs 7,000 if these systems need to go mainstream. With three million small and medium-size enterprises and a million schools and colleges, India has significant potential for thin client penetration. The market for desktops is at least four times the current size.

Companies spend huge sums of money to support and maintain PCs, to purchase software, maintain common desktop configurations and delivery applications. The time it takes to upgrade or install applications in enterprise PCs is measured in days, weeks, even months. However, with server-based computing, applications are installed, maintained and upgraded on central servers, and the deployment of an application on thin client devices can be measured in minutes and hours, the report says.

Alok Singh of Novatium Solutions (P) Ltd, a Chennai-based firm, believes thin client technology holds the key to the computing future. The company, formed by Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT-Madras, Ray Stata, Chairman of the US-based Analog Devices, and Rajesh Jain, Managing Director, Netcore Solutions, Mumbai, is working on a thin client technology to make computing as popular as mobile phones, he says. Imagine a computer that is unbelievably affordable, as user-friendly as a household appliance and tuned in to one's computing needs. This is what Novatium's thin client is going to do, he says.Novatium's affiliate firms, Netcore and TeNet, will build the central `Grid Computer' and other key pieces. Novatium, which will launch its products shortly, will combine these technologies with its thin clients to provide `CommPuting as a Utility' to its customers, he says, adding India will need low-cost computers to take technology to the masses.

ClearCube's offer

The market potential for thin clients is attracting MNCs. ClearCube, a US-based firm, recently entered the market with its enhanced version of thin client. It offers to centralise all PC computing assets into PC Blades (server-style blades that reside in a data centre and hold the same basic components as traditional desktop computers) at a secured location, with end-users connected to these blades through small devices called User Ports.

The company believes financial services, manufacturing, BPO and healthcare would be the first adopters of PC Blades in India. It also expects PC Blades to replace regular PCs with the benefits they offer in terms of efficiencies in uptime, security, manageability and lowering of support costs to the enterprise. IDC predicts that by 2008, the PC Blade market will exceed 6.5 million units or $13 billion.

The ClearCube management software enables IT staff to remotely manage the infrastructure from anywhere in the world and to deliver `on-demand computing' to users according to their needs. For example, a company in the US can use `remote manage' terminals for software development in its India labs while keeping the PC blades in the US. This means there are no disk drives in India for copying the software, the company says.

By using ClearCube, customers realise 99.9 percent availability, physical security and 40 per cent reduction in support costs, claims the company. Its clients include Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Millennium Partners and Bank of America.

raja@thehindu.co.in

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