A Linux thin client for every child
Published: 05 Dec 2007 15:26 GMT
...the template for these deployments. It is also interesting to note the Chinese government has also been very active in this area; in fact the company that won this deployment was the Haier Company, which is one of the largest industrial concerns in China.
We are not entirely certain, but we believe there has been some grant allocation by China to help some of these economies pay for this technology.
How much was the Macedonian government able to save by opting for the thin-client route compared to buying regular PCs?
The next lowest bid was twice the cost and was based around thin-client technology from Wyse. The specific metrics are that we have seven users per $350 (£170) PC — which shows how powerful the devices are. [Each PC acts a server powering seven thin NComputing terminals]. Our client devices run the Edge Ubuntu version of the Ubuntu operating system with OpenOffice.
Some developing countries can be resistant to open source as they want to use the software they associate with developed countries — that is, Windows and Office. Was this a problem in Macedonia?
Our product will work just fine under Microsoft Windows as well, but this was purely the decision made by the Macedonian government in terms of wanting to use open-source tools. Microsoft was involved in the programme, proposing using Windows XP Home Edition, but the government decided it wanted to stay with open-source. This was a decision the government made associated with wanting very low-cost infrastructure. [The decision was made] not just for the students to learn technology but, as they transition to the business community, having a very low-cost technology for businesses [is beneficial] as well.
They are looking to jump-start a whole ecosystem in the country around open source, according to their minister for information. Over a five-year period, they want to become an information- and knowledge-based society. This will allow their kids to be competitive with kids from Western Europe, the minister believes.
They are looking to jump-start a whole ecosystem in the country around open source
What percentage saving do you think there might have been with the open-source approach, as opposed to the government opting for Microsoft Windows and Office?
I am guessing in this deployment it is about $600,000 (£290,000) total deployment difference, because I believe Microsoft was offering their per user unlimited potential programme. That is actually quite small considering the entire deployment was about €30m.
The cost of maintenance is quite low, however, and actually relates to the 20,000 PCs that were deployed, rather than the 180,000 thin-client workstations, because the workstations themselves are maintenance-free. They have basically one chip in them, no moving parts — [and] consume one watt, compared to 120W for a PC.
Also, the Macedonian government acknowledged that any technology deployment they made would be obsolete in five years and the costs of upgrading the infrastructure in five years means they would never be able to afford to upgrade PCs every five years. But they can afford to upgrade the 20,000 shared PCs because they don't have to upgrade the attached terminal devices as they will behave like any PC they are attached to.
How does that work with licensing? Does a user organisation of your technology pay per server PC, per thin-client workstation, or another metric?
With our infrastructure, there is no additional charge for the software. When you purchase our terminal devices, it includes our software that includes the multi-user environment. With regards the operating system and the applications, that is unique to the integrator but with Microsoft you would pay per seat. For education they have numerous discounts. In the UK, for example, they have the open education discount programme which can reduce the cost per seat down to about £1 for the operating system and £20 for Office.
So a seat in this example is one user using Office through one of your terminals?
That is correct. This technology was not developed as an educational technology but it just turns out because it is very low cost and does not require certified network engineers to install the software — it's self-configuring. It is extremely easy to deploy, as evidenced by rolling out 100,000 of these devices in five months.
How does the terminal management compare to managing a traditional local area network of PCs? Does it lend itself to the teaching environment in that a teacher can control what appears on a pupil's terminal?
We have a complete set of tools so that if a teacher is sitting in front of a screen, or two screens or three screens or however many, the teacher can observe up to 128 thumbnails of screens, and they don't need any knowledge of the architecture to do this. The teacher just enters the name of the students, and can be observing...
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