The Thin Client Controversy
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The advent of Client Server computing in the 1990's moved the model of the enterprise computer away from a Mainframe with many dumb terminals to a new model comprising a small group of powerful Servers, with Personal Computers running Client software on the user's desk.
The industry vision for the year 2000 is that this process has gone too far. With an amazing array of software now installed on them, full spec Client PCs have become too powerful, but more importantly for the enterprise, have become unmaintainable. A typical scenario is for users to switch on their PCs on Monday morning, only to be unable to use them for half an hour while five or six automatic software upgrades take place. Then, as likely as not, the one program the user wishes to run no longer works!
The Thin Client
The solution advocated by pundits is the Thin Client. In the extreme case, the Thin Client is a limited spec PC with no resident software at all apart from network capability. When the user wishes to run an application, such as a spreadsheet or client query, the program code is downloaded from the server into memory, and then runs on the Thin Client PC. The program might be written in a universal code such as Java, which will run on any platform, or it could be written in code specific for the type of Client (Intel, Apple, UNIX etc). Either way, the Thin Client only needs code for the program that needs to be run, not several gigabytes of irrelevant programs that are not used.
The Thin Client concept, although elegant, has been taken up rather slowly to date. There are two reasons for this, one is that it depends entirely on the network, and users are, rightly or wrongly, suspicious of the ability of their IT departments to maintain 100% network service. The other reason is that modern full spec PCs continue to sell in large numbers, and so represent better than ever value for money, meaning that the cost advantages of Thin Client are never quite as good as anticipated.
ADAM and the Thin Client
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ADAM has moved into the thin Client arena, whilst maintaining the best of Client Server technology, as well programs resident on the Server where this is most efficient. With this three way approach, ADAM continues to outperform competing software by factors of between three and ten for the same power of server.
The seamless switching between Thin Client programs and, say, server based tasks without the user being aware of the change gives the system designer unparalleled freedom of action.
Most Client Server and Thin Client providers sell an ideology along with their product. ADAM achieves its superior efficiency by providing a choice of approaches rather than a single ideology, thereby delivering a problem-based solution.
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