...called the Data Protection Act, which makes it illegal for companies to store consumer information on a PC. So you should see the mad scramble going on inside of Japanese industries right now as they're trying to figure out what to do.
Are you teaming up with NEC and then selling your thin clients with them, or are you selling under their brand?
Both. It really just depends upon the particular trading group that you're working with. Inside the Japanese government, there are some very strong brand names that we would be foolish to try to go in and subvert. So we will [be the] OEM to those people. Inside of commercial areas, there are cases where big companies might want to use our brand or they might want to use theirs. We're tracking similar legislation in Korea, in Singapore.
Thin clients have been a tough sell in North America and Europe. If you give one to someone, they instantly think they've been singled out as a second-class citizen.
You can laugh at me when I say this, but it is a leap of faith [to say] that if you have a PC you know where the data is. A lot of people think that if they go to the Web site and look at information, it is on their computer. Well, I hate to break it to you, but other than some temporary file buffers, the data is still back there. My whole point here is that we can create exactly the same experience. If I were to bring a thin client in here and you couldn't tell the difference, what difference would it make to you?
One executive said to me, "The big problem is that if the network is down, then people can't do their jobs with the thin client." I told him, "But if the network is down with the PC, they can't do their job either. What they can do is listen to music and play games."
What about mobility?
We're working with firms that are going to be taking mobile phones and turning them into thin clients. You don't need all this Flash and all of these applications here. I don't use them.
The other reason that turns us into a thin client is I can take about 30 percent of the cost out of this by removing all the flash memory, which is where the applications are controlled.
Talkback
I think that the future belongs more to:
- re-use of existing hardware
- increasing use of PDA's or similiair
- increasing use of web based solutions
- increasing use of Identity Management
- increasing use of auditing, monitoring and such
- increasing use of (internal) company (web) applications from everywhere and everything
- increasing use of (internal) company (web) applications by partners, customers, prospects, etc
- decrease of having to pay (much) for software (licenses)
- purchases based on quality, level of support and services rather then quantity and "one size fits all"
- increased awareness of disaster recovery and fallback methods
- simplification of processes
- decentralization of systems
- diversity in solutions
- (legal) redefinition of liability
- a mass exodus of the "old school" people
In short, the age of interconnecting where who you are and what you do is the determining factor in what kind of data, applications and/or services you get delivered rather then what you're using where.
In such a future I see more possibilities for platform independant solutions that know how to interconnect in secure, bandwidth friendly and manageble ways with just about anything anywhere then whatever, yet another, do all and be all "solution" that's just slightly better overall then the previous one. As such I see a bigger future for true vendor independant web based business processes that are loosely connected to eachother by centralized management tools into one total company solution that can handle damage and change of all sorts of aspects.
The questions to always ask is: will this solution solve causes or symptoms? And how does it impact overall on the rest in the short and long run?