Back in October I posted an advocacy statement to Apple's Discussion
Forum [1]. It was removed by Apple without explanation. I was making a
plea for Apple to go where Microsoft has feared to go and deploy a
thin client complement to their desktop machines.

Since the post was benign (see below), I suspected I'd hit a nerve.
Maybe they were actually much closer to doing this than I'd imagined.

This Register article
(http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/34434.html) says that the
tablet will likely come out at MacWorld San Francisco, and that it may
indeed be the thin client I wrote of. They also point to an older
Register article covering older rumors of a thin client machine.

If the rumors are true this is very positive news for the Mac
community. As I wrote below, Apple has very little to use and a lot to
gain, whereas Microsoft has too much to lose to implement what they
once called "Mira".

john
jfaughnan@spamcop.net

[1] http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...ing.google.com

From: jfaughnan@spamcop.net (John Faughnan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Deleted Apple Discussions Posting: Multiuser OS and Apple
Remote desktop
Date: 15 Oct 2003 05:30:11 -0700


I recently learned that a posting I'd just made to Apple's Discussions
forum is gone. It wasn't a rude posting, indeed it wasn't even a
critical posting. It was an advocacy posting, asking when Apple would
make the big move towards a multiuser GUI and thin client wireless
deployment.

Now it's possible some technical glitch took my message. However, I
naturally prefer the more intriguing possibility. I prefer to to think
my posting was deleted. Since it was (honestly) a quite polite posting
(my iPhoto postings are far more critical and they persist), I wonder
if it touched a nerve. Is something afoot?

Anyone who's used Microsoft's remote desktop client on a wireless
iBook has to come away very impressed. Every copy of XP includes
Microsoft's SINGLE user remote desktop server (a limited version of
their Citrix-derived multiuser remote desktop), and there are free
clients for every version of Windows and for the Mac. It works
terribly well. Rather than buy the clumsy Mac version of Quicken to do
my bookeeping on my iBook, I can use my upstairs XP box remotely.
There's a bit of keystroke lag, due in part to the relatively slow
iBook CPU, but it's far better than VNC.

For me, it's the best thing in my mixed OS home LAN since Gopher.

Microsoft could have made XP a multiuser GUI server; they've done it
for years in their server platform. They were on the verge of
deploying the next phase with the Mira project. They didn't. I can
only guess the thought of demolishing Intel and Dell chastened even
Microsoft. Their existing Citrix-derived multiuser GUI is good enough
that many homes and small businesses would buy only one multimedia
server, and then deploy thin clients using ARM or another embedded CPU
Microsoft also, for very good reason, must have feared the impact on
Office licenses. So they passed.

Apple could pull the trigger. They are stealthily making their
X-Windows client more and more a part of OS X (it's needed for
OpenOffice). They have Quartz, a beautiful framework for distributing
video. The underlying OS is, of course, BSD Unix -- multiuser by
nature. They have the perfect server in the dual CPU G5. They have the
iBook, a great thin client that can also be used outside the home in
detached mode. They have 802.11G working across the product line.
Their sync technology is a very good fit, allowing local CPU to
complement the server CPU in interesting ways. They bundle so much
software they can manage the licensing hit, they have a mechanism for
renting software (.Mac) that's already been shown to work (Apple
Backup). They even have their old Remote Desktop code, though I
suspect that may be of little value. They don't care if Dell and Intel
both crater.

With a great solution for server and thin client already in hand, with
the Apple slates rumored to be in development, with the multimedia
genes to use the server for video and music distribution to the
clients, with the .Mac platform, with little to lose and an empire to
gain, the equation looks irresistible. Apple can't resist. They've got
to make the jump Microsoft turned back from.

When Apple jumps, they will fly. Less than 5% of households can keep
one Windows machine running smoothly, much less a network of Windows
machines serving parents and schoolchildren alike. The value of a thin
client approach is overwhelming. Microsoft has been teetering on the
edge, but they're too big to make this kind of jump. Apple can do it.

john faughnan
jfaughnan@spamcop.net
http://jfaughnan.blogspot.com/

meta: jfaughnan, jgfaughnan, Apple, OS X, X-Windows, multi-user GUI,
remote desktop, home, wireless LAN, 802.11G, project Mira, thin
client, iBook, slate, palmtop