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Phil Wainewright
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Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud

By | November 9, 2010, 11:29am PST

Summary: All these fake cloud propositions share a determination to lull customers into a twilight world of the computing undead where nothing has changed. Ignore their siren appeals.

The creativity of the technology industry in reinventing end-of-line products by tossing them into fast-rolling bandwagons apparently knows no bounds. Today we learn that the latest addition to the catalog of cloudwashing infamy is the cloud PC, the clunker formerly known as the ‘thin client’.

Terminal manufacturer Wyse’s fake sorry cloud PC strikes me as the perfect complement to the certified private cloud stacks unveiled yesterday by on-premise software-maker Microsoft and six of its favorite server manufacturers. Less topical though equally cringeworthy is Oracle’s cloud-in-a-box concept trumpeted by Larry Ellison at this year’s OpenWorld.

What all these fake cloud propositions share is a determination to lull customers into a twilight world of the computing undead where nothing has changed. They aim to keep computing locked away in lifeless seclusion from the vibrant, global, 24×7, connected universe of the open, public cloud where business gets done today. Anyone with any sense will ignore their siren appeals. They are a world away from the true meaning of cloud.

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PC, Computing, Desktops, Hardware, Phil Wainewright

Since 1998, Phil Wainewright has been a thought leader in cloud computing as a blogger, analyst and consultant.

Disclosure

Phil Wainewright

Phil Wainewright's work as an independent consultant brings him into direct or indirect business relationships with several of the companies that he writes about, or their competitors. Phil is committed to maintaining the independent and opinionated stance that his writings are well known for and does not enter into contracts that would limit his freedom of expression in any way. However it is important in the interests of full disclosure to inform readers of those relationships so they can form their own judgement.

Read the complete list of Phil's relationships.

Biography

Phil Wainewright

Since 1998, Phil Wainewright has been a thought leader in cloud computing as a blogger, analyst and consultant. He founded pioneering website ASPnews.com, and later Loosely Coupled, which covered enterprise adoption of web services and SOA. As CEO of strategic consulting group Procullux Ventures, he has developed an evaluation framework to help ISVs and enterprises select cloud platforms, and advises US and European vendors on messaging, positioning and go-to-market. His newest role as an industry advocate is vice-president of EuroCloud.

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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
scott2010au 13th Nov 2010
@davidangwin How many of these 'fake PCs' can do a workload like that ***while actually reducing costs?***
View in thread
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Ok, we do need to expose the fakes. Will the real cloud PC please stand up!
DonnieBoy 9th Nov 2010
Who is it. Will it be ChromeOS computers? No!!! they have native client!!!
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License count goes ... Up!
mbouckaert 9th Nov 2010
Brilliant MS idea.
One used to need, say, 10 seats. Originally all what was needed was 10 Windows licenses.

Oh but no, you *need* central services so you need one (at least) server license. No, that is so much 2000.

But wait! The Cloud brings licenses! They rain: One license for Hyper-V, one license *each* for each VM Guest, *plus* one license per "cloud PC"!

I suppose we'll see Windows Keyboards next.

----

OBTW, for people who do not believe in one-size-fits-all: Look also at ways to use one central, run-of-the-mill PC, with several video cards and several keyboards. Use Linux to provide one VM Guest per keyboard/screen pair. Since you're hardwired to your video card, intensive graphics is still possible. Each VM runs whatever you want, including Windows.

Thin Cloud PCs for the text-based, multi-station PC for most, high-end PCs for multimedia designers...
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
ItsTheBottomLine 9th Nov 2010
@mbouckaert "Thin Cloud PCs for the text-based?" do you mean CLI interface?
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
unclefixer@... 9th Nov 2010
@mbouckaert Windows branded keyboards have been around for a while. I have 2 of them... just don't tell Microsoft about it, or they'll hit me for a license on each of those!!
www.dfwsupergeek.com
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
inkwell 9th Nov 2010
Can I use fake currency to buy the fake machine?
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
unclefixer@... 9th Nov 2010
This all sounds pretty good, as long as I'm using the fake PC to do fake work- meaning, watching youtube when I should be doing website updates! happy
www.dfwsupergeek.com
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
m88k 9th Nov 2010
While calling it a cloud is silly, there are reasons why you'd want to isolate from the outside world better than cloud offerings might. Think defense contractors, hospitals, ect. Places that have been using thin clients for years and don't need to be sold the "local cloud" concept. Is the advertising ridiculous? Of course, it's advertising, but the terminal isn't going anywhere soon.
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
dave@... 9th Nov 2010
Why not bring the whole "cloud" thing down to earth and call it the fog that it is.
The whole thing has been around for over 30 years except that we called it distributed processing back then in the 70's and 80's.
And we had lots of terminals connected to a central processor. I even used to connect a terminal from home via a modem when on call.
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Cloud Computing is for the Birds
jpr75_z 9th Nov 2010
You have got to have a screw loose to entrust enterprise apps to an off premise Cloud provider and the undependabilty of the Internet. Anyone who has had to work with ISPs and/or virtual environments knows what a pain in the neck they are and cloud computing just takes it one step further - into more pain, no gain. Just say NO to cloud computing and these silly cloud PCs.
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
amjoemighty 10th Nov 2010
From the responses, many out here still have no idea about cloud computing. Pity.

The crux is nobody owns the 'cloud', and companies like Oracle and Wyse, blah, blah, tries to outsmart the natural evolution of computing harnessing the power and space of Internet - a privilege, yet abused by $-hungry enterprises.

Cloud should be free, as in free beer and of course, the Internet!
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It's all about virtual desktops
daboochmeister 10th Nov 2010
Once you've worked through the value equation of virtual desktops (and in spite of the typical blog-comment cynicism, it IS there for many organizations), then it really boils down to what device do people need to host the desktop. At that point, you can optimize, giving many cheap (yes, they ARE cheaper in bulk than full PCs), if-it-breaks-swap-it-out thin clients, reserving full PCs for only those whose work and value-add justify it.
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TANSTAAFL
Dr_Zinj 10th Nov 2010
"Free" cloud? Who the heck pays for the infrastucture to build it? Who the heck pays to maintain it? WHo the heck pays the dg electric bills for it? Tax payers?
Not on MY watch!
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
Topalovich 10th Nov 2010
Phil, without PC's in the cloud, how could Microsoft bring us groundbreaking new services like photo editing and pcAnywhere, like they demonstrate in their awesome and visionary "To the Cloud" commercials?
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Laughable
civikminded Updated - 10th Nov 2010
Most enterprises cannot even grasp the concept of shared infrastructure.

Most enterprises can't implement a vanilla ERP solution.

What chance does cloud have?

I'm also glad you were able to nail down the definition of cloud in your previous post:

The whole point of cloud computing is to be able to operate in the cloud in that global, 247, connected universe where you can instantly reach and interact with your customers, your partners and your mobile employees, as well as tapping into an expanding cornucopia of third-party resources and services that can help you achieve business results faster, better and at lower cost.

Your big 'definition' is the exact kind of fluff that plays into the concept that 'cloud' is not a technical innovation, but a marketing innovation.

I'm still waiting for the cloud to show me that it can deliver the goods.

As far as I'm concerned, you can't define cloud in anymore of a compelling way than Wyse can. At least Wyse has a product. All you seem to have is marketing hyperbole.
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Why did Wyse call them Cloud PCs?
davidangwin Updated - 11th Nov 2010
As it was our announcement that started all this, let me give the Wyse view (its who I work for).
Is the future the vibrant, global,24x7 connected universe of the public cloud - absolutely. But is that where your organisation is today - probably not. You most likely run your business on Windows apps, and unless you were early to the party, these will run on PCs.

This future cloud vision could be as much as 5-10 years away but there are steps you can take today to start gaining the benefits. The biggest one of these is desktop virtualisation in one of several ways and most likely this will be from servers you own or are managed for you - aka the private cloud (I dont make up the terms this is what more and more IT professionals, analysts and journalists are calling it).

What we announced were NOT rebadged thin clients. They may use the same hardware platforms but these are diskless PCs, with the operating system provisioned (streamed) from a server on the local LAN. The architecture joins up remote sites over private or public networks to give a single point of management and deployment. In short these are PCs provisioned from a private cloud: or cloud PCs. We find this term helps people understand how they are different from thin clients, which display a remotely run desktop.

One last point: does the thin client deserve the clunker label? Im just back from TechEd Europe where this same piece of hardware, but in its thin client guise, was running 1080p video, Google Earth, and 3d chess at the same time. This is a workload many PCs would struggle with, so I think this label is somewhat out of date.
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RE: Now you can buy a fake PC for your fake cloud
scott2010au 13th Nov 2010
@davidangwin How many of these 'fake PCs' can do a workload like that ***while actually reducing costs?***
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Lies, Disguise, and Segregation
ocyl 12th Nov 2010
UnWyse thin clients are not PCs. They are dumb terminals deployed by those IT departments which believe that their users are not intellectually fit or worthy enough to use a regular computer, and that it is a good idea to actively promote employee classification and segregation inside an organisation.

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