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What's Next for the Thin-Client Market?
With promises of rapid deployment of new applications and a reduction in support-staff costs of up to 80 percent, thin-client technology sounds like a panacea for much of what ails IT. But evaluating trends and cutting through the hype in this developing market isn't easy. For the immediate future, developments in software architecture are expected to drive the market. Hardware solutions will emerge as the software architecture stabilizes and currently deployed PCs age out of service.
What lies ahead for this market? Here are some predictions based on the existing trends.
· The TSE/MetaFrame model will lose ground. The Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition (TSE)/Citrix MetaFrame software model's dominance will be short-lived. The Gartner Group predicts that by 2002, 80 percent of host access and terminal emulation will occur via browser or Java functionality, and the overall thin-client market will reach $3 billion. Zona Research predicts shipment of 600,000 thin-client devices in 1999, for a total market value of $390 million. Robust growth will follow, but the exact size of the thin-client hardware market could fall anywhere within a wide range. Gartner predicts that by 2002, the market for Java computers and Windows terminals will range from 5 million to 25 million units--probably closer to the lower figure. In contrast, PC shipments may reach 110 million in the same year.
· Developers will target browser platforms. Look for an important shift away from the Windows platform as an architecture for client applications. Gartner projects that by next year, only 43 percent of developers will target Windows as their primary development platform, a sharp decline from 72 percent in 1997. By 2001, browsers will become the primary target for development.
· Hardware development will follow, not lead, software development. Immature products and premature releases have hampered the hardware market, but that will change as the devices mature and the software architecture sorts itself out. Improvements in PCs, Windows terminals, Java computers, specialized thin-client devices and simplified mass-access devices, such as Web TVs, will follow software developments. As the software architecture matures and gains acceptance, the hardware market will begin to catch up. Within a couple of years, the majority of new enterprise applications under development will be network-based, spurring the hardware market as currently deployed PCs get older and are retired.
--Stephen Paling, swpaling@syr.edu
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