In a recent TechRepublic article, Jason Hiner asks: Are Netbooks quietly driving us to Thin Clients and Cloud Computing?
Of course, the article is primarily about netbooks and how wonderful they are. No argument here. But the question of thin versus cloud has popped up in an interesting way. Thin is important because of the nature of the netbook but what does that have to do with cloud computing? Not all cloud applications are thin.
Perhaps the logic is as follows:
- If cloud then we are delivering services over the internet
- If internet then we must be using a browser
- If browser then the computing must be taking place in the backend with only the UI distributed to the client device
- Therefore all cloud devices must be thin
So what about rich clients? We happen to think that they are perfectly suited to cloud computing. Maybe our latest whitepaper on Better Together: Rich Clients and Cloud Computing can help set the record straight – or at least prompt some alternate thinking.
If internet we must be using a browser? Incomplete logic there. Let's just drop all of those FTP services which support most transfers of files, and a few dozen other tools that don't talk HTTP/S or need a "browser" to run. I think Citrix can be "in the cloud", don't you? My ssh connections don't use a browser, and without ssh, most routers in the world would be a real pain to manage.
X11 does the job nicely, managing the client/server relationship to drive the compute expectations at each end. Odd to have this throwback come to the forefront yet again....