----- Original Message -----
From: "G.Harris"
The cost of the Citrix licences is offset by many other advantages: Central administration of TC and PC desktops and software. We can keep using old computers long after anyone else has disposed of them and they run at near server speed even on a 233 pentium box.(The DfES still haven't cottoned on to this one and Becta are still assessing our system based upon a standard PC model.
I am not knocking citrix - indeed we use it. But I think - to be fair - it is hard to justify the cost, especially when you consider the cost of licences - not only for citrix, but also for terminal server (or terminal serices in Win2000) and the cost of NT workstation for each workstation (even though you're not running NT, or even an Intel platform). I must say, I think the cost of these licences are unreasonably high, as I don't think the practical funcionality is nearly as good as they would be running on a real PC. Although Word is fine, IE is a bit irritating especially with animated GIFs, and flash type content. Excel can be a pain when scrolling - and users need some guidance as to what NOT to do - which usually prompts them to give it a try. Publisher is REALLY sticky - as will be most CAD type packages as they tend to refresh the screen in a rather unintelligent way as far as terminal services are concerned. However, I agree they can make old stations function acceptably for some tasks, including old Acorn stations and remote running of applications from home is certainly possible - although again the situation on licences is often rather grey here. Of course you don't need Citrix as there is a perfectly good terminal service client (or remote desktop client as it know seems to be called) which is 'free' for PC clients. The Acorn RDC client is not yet up to the job in my opinion, although the linux version seems fine on linux. You don't get such easy mapping of printers and local/remote hard drives with RDC but thats fairly trivial and certainly not worth the price differential. I tend to use it for running odd applications that I can't be bothered to install on all machines where use is very ocassional rather than for use in a mainstream classroom. -- Alan Davies Head of Computing Birkenhead School