Technology Forum - Thin Client Solutions for Education
28th March 2008 at Esher College.
Fifteen reperesentives, primarily from Further Education colleges in the South East, met at Esher college for an RSC SE Technology Forum themed around ‘Thin Client Solutions for Education’.
In particular we looked at the functionality, benefits, issues and the total cost of ownership of Thin Client technology. An initial discussion revealed a degree of scepticism and disappointment based on people’s previous experience of thin client systems. This mainly resulted from poor performance and lack of features - particulalry USB, audio and printing difficulties. The management of Windows DLLs was also cited as a major complication of these systems.
We were joined by representatives of Sun Microsystems who impressively demonstrated their Java based Sun Ray systems which addressed many of these concerns.
The slides from Sun’s presentation are attached here and include full contact details for anyone who wishes get in touch with the company.
Follow up actions
Sun Microsystems have informed us of a ‘Sun Seed’ programme which allows organisations to trial and evaluate their technology. The RSC SE will be liaising with Sun and the forum delegates to try to stablish a Sun Ray evaluation in their respective colleges. Anyone interested in participating should contact the RSC SE.
Sun have also offered to organise a visit to a Sun Ray reference site and the RSC SE will be contacting delegates to determine the level of interest in such a visit.
It is hoped that the next Technology Forum will take place in the sumer term and will be themed aroun ‘Server Virtualisation’. Anyone interested in hosting the event or presenting on the topic should contact the RSC SE.