When I worked for Qwest, late 90's, early 2000's, we all had computers but we really did nothing with them other than connect to a central server that did most of our work. So even then, a "dumb terminal" would have worked just fine. Most large companies have a server farm that does much of the work for them, the PC's are just to connect and display.
So we really never got away from that model. -----Original Message----- From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf Of Jayson Baker Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 4:32 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] The stupid network I don't know about "focused and articulate" (it is Sunday afternoon, afterall) but I can tell you that yes, we're seeing (and implementing that). Example, a local entity we do computer consulting for (i.e. maintain Windows servers/desktops)... Over 100 desktop machines, 90% of people do nothing more than Word/Excel and MSIE. They're very locked down permission-wise. They've been spending $20k/yr on upgrades and maintenance. Over the next 3-5 years as these $1000 Dell machines reach the end of their warranty period, they're going to install 2 massive terminal services servers and start replacing desktops with thin-clients. Not only will it be a much more effecient use of computing power, but it will save them an estimated $20000/yr on electricity. Weird, isn't it? Jayson On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 10:55 AM, Marlon K. Schafer <o...@odessaoffice.com>wrote: > Hi All, > > I was recently reminded of this white paper. I'd read it years ago (early > 2000's I'm sure) and it's helped guide my way of thinking about our > industry. > > After re-reading it a few minutes ago I'm amazed at how accurate it's been > in it's predictions of what could happen if entrepreneurs were to enter the > communications industry in any reasonable numbers. > > A question has popped into my mind though. One that's been percolating for > several months. When computers were new, the end users had terminals. > They > shared time on the servers, but there was little or no actual computing > power at the end user's fingertips. > > Today, we have most of the computing power at our fingertips, very few of > us > do any real computing remotely. Remote devices are always on data storage > devices more than anything else. > > Yet, as I write this, someone else is signing up for Quicken On-line. > Someone is listening to Yahoo Radio, online. > > Are we about to start the circle all over again? Are we moving from a > distributed, computing model back to a centralized computing mechanism. > > I'd love to read people's focused and articulate thoughts one what they > think the future will hold for us here. David was pretty right on over the > last decade. What will the next decade bring? > > marlon > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
