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Windows NT Terminal Server or Citrix WinFrame/MetaFrame?
Managers contemplating the installation of Windows terminals need to come to grips with the back-end server platform, as well as the choice of client devices. In today's market, that usually means choosing between Microsoft's Windows NT Terminal Server Edition and Citrix WinFrame. If only it were that simple.

We were impressed with the performance and stability of Windows NT Terminal Server Edition. In fact, we did not experience a single problem that could be attributed to problems on the server. Microsoft has done a good job improving performance of its RDP protocol, while also adding compression to minimize bandwidth overhead. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, NT Terminal Server and RDP have notable weaknesses. There is no support for audio using RDP, and it is limited to the Win32 operating environment. Further, the back-end software lacks any provision for load-balancing across servers. If you need to support non-Win32 clients, you need audio support. Or if you are concerned about transparent scaling, you'll need to either use WinFrame and settle for the old Windows 3.x user interface or else add MetaFrame as an option on top of Terminal Server. Not only does the latter add a layer of complexity, it also adds a layer of cost.

We wish there were a better way, but for now, those are your choices.