Another 90 Percent

Certainly Energy is a important battleground for a lot of the up and coming technology, everyone seems to be trying to develop equipment that uses less and less. Processors, Laptop batteries, mobile devices, etc., etc., everyones hopping on board here.

Including Wyse, the king of the thin terminal. The latest story from them is that thinnies are 90 percent more efficient than desktops:

"Traditional PCs pump electricity into idle processors, spinning hard drives and local cooling systems -- a tremendous waste of resources," said Jeff McNaught, Vice President, Marketing and Customer Support at Wyse Technology. "By contrast, thin clients contain no moving parts and use little electricity, adding low energy costs to the list of reasons why the TCO of a thin client is 40 percent less than a PC."

So true, so true. Add in the centralized administration, the extended lifespan of 10-12 years per terminal, and you have got to wonder why more organizations aren't using them. Obviously one big problem is old thinking, where 80 percent of the typical IT budget is allocated for maintenence, and the IT personnel would rather fix stuff than be unemployed by introducing new technology. Seems simple enough to point out that the R&D budget could be increased greatly if the maintenence was reduced.