The New York Times has discovered (or rediscovered) thin computing: a small simple device (or ‘terminal’) with just enough under the hood to send mouse & keyboard clicks to a server doing absolutely everything else.  Initially hyped as a challenge to Microsoft’s domination of the workplace desktop, the concept had its 15 minutes as The Next Big Thing a few years back, only to fall from favor due to network performance issues (while it’s acceptable if an application’s a teensy bit slower over the network, sluggish mouse and key response is a non-starter for most users).

But look at the advantages, though: rather than a $1000 workstation with Windows and Office installed, we’re talking about a simple paperback-sized box and monitor for $400, all in.  Granted, MS Terminal Server (and especially Citrix) licenses do cost, but on the other hand consider that there’s no fan noise, no hard drive failures, no long boot-up time, no virus susceptibility, no user-installed malware, space savings, power consumption savings – the list goes on and on.

And I speak from experience – several years ago, as the network administrator for a small business with half a dozen retail and office locations spread across  the country, I moved a good portion of my remote users to these devices.  This not only solved my problem of how to install and maintain remote these workstations, my client (who was growing quickly at the time) loved the immediate savings compared to the workstations they had been buying (even taking the cost of terminal server licenses into account).  I was a hero; life was good (in a keep-the-trains-running job like network administration, you tend to savor those win-win moments). 

While I chose devices from Wyse, as the NY Times article points out, thin client computing is becoming The Next Big Thing all over again - so there are more and more manufacturers out there.  So many, in fact, that it begs the question:

What about the home market?

What I’m getting at is the return of the web appliance.  Like thin clients, this is another concept from a few years back that never quite took off – the only difference being the addition of an onboard web browser of some sort (maybe the well-received Opera browser, since Sony is already embedding that into its new Internet Video Link hardware).  Because in a world of Hulu, Flickr, and Google Docs (services which, unlike Windows Terminal Server or Citrix, are generally free), a simple little box with a browser and a handful of drivers for peripherals would about do it for a lot of folks, wouldn’t it?

Clearly, cloud computing is The Next Big Thing now – at least Google thinks so, and Microsoft thinks so too.   The potential reliability and privacy issues of cloud computing might be a little easier to take if one also imagines potential upside of being able to radically simplify things for the home user.

So thin computing is back. Who knows, maybe the time is finally becoming right again for the web appliance too; maybe the browser is the new operating system.

Need any more proof it’s not your father’s internet anymore? This just in, from ZDnet – Microsoft is populating the new data centers it’s been heavily investing in lately not by the rack full of servers, but by the (wait for it…) shipping container full of servers. That’s right, trucks pull up and unload a shipping container chock full of pre-configured, pre-networked servers. Connect power and air conditioning to the shipping container, and you’ve just brought a serious amount of additional server capacity online. Enough failures, and the container is shipped out for repair.

Also from the ZDnet article, an astounding statistic: it’s unclear how many are additional and how many are replacements, but Microsoft adds approximately 10,000 server per month.
Ten. Thousand. Servers. Per. Month.

What’s behind numbers like that? In addition to web search, it also reflects Microsoft’s move towards a more vertically integrated approach towards cloud computing – and there’s not only Hotmail/MSN, but there’s also the recently launched (Google Apps competitor) Online Suite with hosted Exchange (rather than just sell the software, Microsoft clearly feels there’s a future in selling the service as well).

Another reason for the big push is the anticipated explosion of media over IP – as Microsoft’s general manager of infrastructure Arne Josefsberg puts it, “One of the big drivers for us that I see is the move to IP-based delivery of rich video.”

Besides insanely quick scalability, it should be noted that the shipping container scheme allows for more efficient cooling – and Microsoft is also working closely with its hardware vendors to eliminate all unnecessary ports and motherboard circuitry to further reduce power consumption. More on Microsoft’s green data centers here. Kudos.