HP Adds to Thin Client Portfolio

Once again, I had a wonderful conversation with HP’s Tad Bodeman, director of marketing, Thin Client Solutions. This time we discussed new hardware (HP gt7720 performance series and both HP t5730w and HP t5630w Flexible Series thin clients, RDB enhancements and client automation support being offered by HP.

How HP Describes the Announcement

Here's what HP has to say about its announcement:

The offerings include:

• HP gt7720 Performance Series and HP t5730w and HP t5630w Flexible Series Thin Clients, which enhance the core features of Microsoft Windows® Embedded Standard, the next generation of Windows XP Embedded, by providing additional rich multimedia, deployment and management functionality to businesses running Windows-based remote computing architectures.
• Availability of HP Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Enhancements software to provide easy, out-of-the-box multimedia and USB device redirection.
• Collaboration between HP and VMware to allow HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) to deliver a rich multimedia and collaborative VMware virtual desktop experience.
• HP Client Automation support for HP thin clients, an enterprise-wide client management solution that helps administrators set alerts to identify potential issues before they happen or to automatically update administrative requirements, which keeps devices up to date without additional labor.

Snapshot Analysis

I've examined HP's thin client offerings many times in the past. I've often noted that HP is one of a rare group of suppliers that has the ability to direclty address every layer of virtualization techology and nearly every segment in every layer of that technology. (see Sorting out the different layers of virtualization for more on the Kusnetzky Group model.)

The company has gone to great efforts to position itself as a must-have partner for virtualized environments based upon both midrange systems and industry standard systems. This means that if an organization has thoughts about deploying solutions based upon access, application, processing, storage, or network virtualization and also need tools that manage such an environment, HP should be on their short list.

Only IBM can claim a similar portfolio of products and services

Unasked for Shoot-From-the-Hip Advice

HP, your product names don't mean anything to anyone. A series of letters and numbers might be a truly international way of presenting products, but it is really hard to remember what is what or to get enthusiastic about it.  Please remember all purchases, even those of technology product are based upon emotional decisions.

Who, after all, would remember what is the difference between a gt7720 and a t5730w? How does that differ from the 6310v and C5140 that I wrote about in the recent past? The product name really gives little clue to what it refers to.