Wyse officials will continue its software push over the next couple of months when they release new offerings currently under development. In contrast, a thin client costs bout $100 to $200 per month, and has an expected lifespan of six to eight years, compared with three years for traditional PCs. For example, he estimated that it costs businesses $300 to $450 a month for each user’s PC, from buying and operating them to updating and powering them to software licensing. The draw for them, Maner said, are benefits ranging from easier manageability, greater security, reduced costs and improved worker mobility. Along with customers already announced, Maner said he is in discussions with a number of large enterprises that are looking to switch out tens of thousands of traditional desktops for thin clients and virtualized desktops. Maner also said Wyse will continue to remake itself into a software company that offers businesses innovative virtualized desktop offerings.Īnd businesses are beginning to get the message, he said. He expects to see that same trend with the iPad. Wyse has sold more than 10,000 PocketCloud licenses for the iPhone since September, an indication of businesspeople’s desire to use their Apple products as a corporate tool, Maner said. The PocketCloud app dovetails with what Wyse officials have been saying for the past few months: that the iPad makes a perfect thin client for virtualized desktop environments. It supports a host of environments, including Microsoft Windows 7 Pro and Ultimate, Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Business, and Remote Desktop Services and Terminal Services in Windows Server products.
In addition, existing PocketCloud users who buy an iPad will have access across the iPod Touch and iPhone at no additional cost. The PocketCloud App for iPad will be available for $29.99. However, iPad users through the Wyse app will be able to access Websites that use Flash, Maner said. Though the technology is widely used, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has called it a CPU hog and buggy.
Maner said PocketCloud also will help alleviate enterprise concerns regarding Apple’s decision not to use Flash technology. Other features include a custom keyboard with function and shortcut keys, an enhanced multitouch interface, a newly designed mouse touch pointer, and a redesigned look and feel of the computer’s list. Wyse rewrote PocketCloud to run natively on the iPad’s larger high-resolution screen, and to make it easier for iPad users to modify their RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) and VMware View connections. I do not have any hardware engineers in my company.”Īlong with being added to the iPad App Store, PocketCloud also has more than 20 new and improved features, including support for VMware’s View 4 virtual desktop product, Wyse’s new Touch Pointer-a pointer on the screen that lets you navigate, point, click and double-click on items on the screen, no matter how small-and more audio features. The bottom line is that the differentiator is software. “For the last five or six years, we’ve been focusing on software. “Our story was a hardware story for many, many years,” Maner said. The company still makes thin-client hardware, but it’s the software IP that is the key differentiator for the company in what is rapidly becoming a highly competitive desktop virtualization space that not only includes such heavyweights as Microsoft, Citrix and VMware, but also a host of smaller vendors and startups. It’s also part of Wyse’s larger push to position itself as a software company in the client virtualization and cloud computing space, breaking away from its legacy as a thin-client device maker. Wyse’s PocketCloud App for iPad is among a growing number of business applications that are being put into the iPad App Store. “We’re taking it to the enterprise market.” “The iPad is being positioned for the consumer market,” Wyse CEO Tarkan Maner said in an interview April 2 in Boston. Now Wyse is bringing it to the Apple iPad, the much-anticipated tablet that goes on sale April 3. It also lets IT administrators gain access to end-user machines through their Apple devices. Wyse introduced PocketCloud in August 2009 as a way to enable users of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch to access their work environments on their PCs and virtual desktops from their iPhone or iPod Touch. Desktop virtualization vendor Wyse Technology is making its PocketCloud software available to users of Apple’s iPad.