Windows PCs continue to dominate the enterprise desktop, despite attempts to replace them with alternatives such as thin clients, which promise tighter management control and lower operating costs. One firm that aims to draw organisations away from using PCs is Cranberry, which claims to have blended the capabilities of both thin clients and PCs into a device it calls a Smart Client. This can not only cut management overheads, but also save on corporate energy bills, the company said.

Available since the start of December, Cranberry’s SC20 can operate in client-server, Citrix or virtual application environments, according to the firm. “It captures all the management benefits of thin clients and the performance and productivity features of fat clients,” said Cranberry chief executive Simon Ponsford.

The Smart Client does not lock firms into either a server-based or fat client strategy because it supports any method of application deployment, Ponsford claimed, and can be used for all applications except those requiring high-end workstation hardware.

However, the Smart Client faces an uphill battle for enterprise adoption, not least because Windows PCs are so firmly entrenched in corporate environments.

“What they’ve basically done is lock down the desktop PC ­ - which is a good thing ­ - but the problem is that everyone already has the desktop PC. This is what stymied Wyse thin clients and Sun with its Sun Ray box,” said David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum. He believes there will have to be a significant impetus to make businesses switch.

The device resembles a thin client: a small unobtrusive black box with four USB ports at the front and VGA and Ethernet ports at the rear. Its secret lies with the software that powers it - a highly customised version of Microsoft’s Windows XP Embedded (XPe) platform, stripped down to be as small as possible while allowing standard Windows applications to run, plus an integrated RES Wisdom management client that enables remote configuration and application deployment.

While the term “smart client” has previously referred to software, Cranberry decided to apply this label to its new device because it fits the same description, according to Ponsford, offering zero deployment, the ability to be updated without user intervention, and a full Windows desktop experience.

“You just take the SC20 out of its box, connect it to the LAN, and when switched on it looks for the deployment server and automatically configures itself with anything you need,” Ponsford said. An administrator can even update applications in the background while users are working, without them knowing.

Unlike most thin clients, the SC20 can run Windows applications locally, just like a PC. If configured with an RDP or ICA client, it can also be used to access server-based applications, or serve as the console for virtual desktops hosted in a datacentre.

However, perhaps the most interesting deployment method supported by Cranberry is application virtualisation, whereby standard Windows applications are run locally, but in a virtual layer that prevents them from making any changes to the operating system or registry.

A product such as Thinstall encapsulates an application into a package that can simply be dropped onto a system to deploy it, while Microsoft’s SoftGrid takes this a step further, enabling a virtual application to be streamed on demand to clients across the network.

These deployment tools were designed with Windows PCs in mind, and although the SC20 is compatible, Ponsford said it is impractical to use them with standard thin clients.

“If you tried to add the SoftGrid client it is unlikely to install because the underlying Windows XP components needed won’t be present [in the terminal image build],” Ponsford said. Adding in the necessary components would dramatically increase the image size, because of dependencies, to the point where it would no longer fit in the terminal’s Flash ROM.

The flexibility to use any of the deployment methods outlined above makes the Smart Client a more effective replacement for a desktop PC, according to Ponsford.

“Thin clients still require configuration and are too restrictive ­ - there’s no local device support for things like USB peripherals, for example. Some organisations got their fingers burned with thin client deployments, and went back to PCs instead,” Ponsford said.

But PCs are at the opposite extreme and are “too open” for the liking of most corporations. “The Smart Client starts off as a restricted device, taking away this openness, and lets administrators open it up as they see fit,” Ponsford said. He claimed that the device is so secure that there is no need to deploy client-side anti-virus or anti-spyware tools, and that the majority of security patches issued by Microsoft do not apply to it either.

However, Bradshaw said that although Smart Clients look like an attractive option for fresh deployments, it is difficult to see why firms would ditch PCs they already had.
“The most likely scenario you would get is a mixed deployment, with some users staying on PCs. [But] IT departments are not comfortable with more than one version of Windows on the network, so I can’t imagine they would be keen on mixing deployment modes as well,” Bradshaw said.

Cranberry is also pushing the green credentials of the SC20, which has been designed with recycling in mind. Its size means it can easily be shipped back to the manufacturer, its aluminium casing can be removed for recycling, and the motherboard does not contain toxic chemicals, so can be crushed to a fine dust for disposal.

It also consumes much less energy than a desktop PC. Based on an AMD Geode LX800 processor at 500MHz and with 1GB memory, it consumes no more than 10W compared with about 200W for a typical Windows desktop.

“Over its typical five-year lifespan, a Smart Client pays for itself in power savings alone,” said Ponsford.

The SC20 costs £349, which is about the same price as an entry-level PC, but firms are likely to be spending a lot more money on managing desktop PC systems than they would with a Smart Client, according to Ponsford. The price includes all the server-side software needed to support a deployment, he said.

Cranberry said it has pilots under way with two UK customers: retail buying group Nisa Today’s and VocaLink, the organisation that operates the electronic clearing system for banks. The SC20 is available in the Benelux region, UK, Sweden and Finland via reseller CDG.