Wyse, more than just thin clients

I've followed Wyse for the longest time and yet, when I had an opportunity to speak with Jeff McNaught, CMO of Wyse Technology I was surprised at how far they're business has evolved from that base. The company now is doing interesting things in three areas: virtual clients, cloud computing and green computing. When one considers where the company started, creating thin clients for Citrix and Microsoft terminal services-based environments, evolving in the direction of creating hardware and software that makes accessing virtual desktops and virtual systems cost effective and productive makes a great deal of sense.

The company has been working on improving the overall experience people have when using these virtualized environments to address what their customers have been long requesting. Organizations have been telling Wyse (and anyone else who would listen) that they like how cost effective virtual desktops and virtual applications can be. They often point out that they aren't totally pleased with the experience one has when using highly graphical applications or media-based applications.

Wyse has been working on layering technology on top of both Citrix's ICA and Microsoft's RDP protocols to make it possible to enhance the presentation of high performance graphics and media. Furthermore, they've developed new thin client devices specifically for people needing to access very large scale graphics, such as examining images created during radiological examinations.

Snapshot analysis

All of the competitors, such as HP, IBM, Sun, ClearCube, Pano Logic and Ncomputing,  are offering approaches that, if implemented correctly, could produce significant savings in the areas of desktop hardware and in the staff-related areas of administration and operations. Wyse faces the challenge of making the industry aware of what it's doing in the face of this competition.

That being said, I would bet that if asked, Wyse would point out that their primary competition comes from HP. And that the others only show up in specific situations.

Wyse would point out that its broad portfolio of products and its extensive partner network often tip the balance when potential customers are considering the virtual access landscape.