InformationWeek

NCs Won't Ease The Load

Network computers may change, but not diminish, the support burden on IS

By Paul Korzeniowski
Issue date: Jan. 27, 1997

With all the hype about network computers being so easy to install and maintain, it would be understandable if some IS staffers became a little paranoid. If the claims are true, legions of help-desk staff, technicians, and programmers might worry about getting a pink slip.

After all, Zona Research Inc., a Redwood City, Calif., market research firm, expects unit sales of the devices to soar from a measly 383,100 last year to 6. 8 million by 2000. Other forecasters are almost as enthusiastic.

This surge may look dramatic on analysts' charts at technology briefings, but the effect on IT departments will be much more subtle. Organizations that use NCs are expected to be freed of the most onerous desktop tasks, such as cranky installations, complicated testing, and help-desk support of PCs. In addition, developers won't have to sweat over including desktop logic while partitioning applications.

While the savings in cost and effort would theoretically mean that IS shops relying on NCs could need fewer technicians, developers, and help-desk staff, the reality is different. The slack from NCs will be more than offset by the increased network-management burden and the continuing growth in the number and type of Web-related application development projects.

Claims that NCs will free IS from the maintenance burden are based on a simple fact--NCs are easier to maintain than PCs. The devices lack the CD-ROM, hard disk, and diskette drives found in PCs, so fewer hardware components can fail. And with NCs, software is stored on central servers. Therefore, technicians will no longer have to troubleshoot individual machines to isolate application glitches.

Because of these features, NCs may offer significant savings over desktop PCs. International Data Corp., a Framingham, Mass., market research firm, found that maintaining an NC costs a company $3,145 per year compared with $5,174 to keep a PC up and running, a 40% savings.

Calculations from Gartner Group Inc., an IT advisory firm in Stamford, Conn., are even higher. According to David Cappucchio, VP and research area director, running a Windows NT workstation costs a company $10,500 per year compared with $6,150 to operate a Java workstation. The survey was based on a three-year life cycle for each product.

Bargain-basement desktops and vendor rhetoric have led to the perception that companies are poised to swap out PCs for NCs. Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison "has driven discussio n of NCs into the mainstream," says Jim Fulton, director of market development at Network Computing Devices Inc., a Mountain View, Calif., NC supplier. "But his emphasis has been more on bashing Microsoft than [on] accurately portraying how these devices will be used."

The reality is far different from the hype. NCs will not replace desktop machines, so few companies will see dramatic drops in support costs. Suppliers expect that only one out of every five NCs will be sold as a PC replacement; the bulk of sales will come from displacing dumb terminals. "There are approximately 40 million green-screen terminals now running in corporations," says Michael Stebel, director of strategic alliances at Boundless Technologies Inc., an Austin, Texas, NC supplier. "These users cannot easily access PC applications; NCs provide a simple way to give users that capability."

NCs are replacing dumb terminals for intranet use at AT&T. Michael Owdij, a technical consultant at the Basking Ridge, N.J., telecommunicati ons company, says AT&T has 11,000 users stationed in seven customer-service centers throughout the United States. The service centers had been using one of three different Unix systems, but two years ago, AT&T looked at ways to ease systems maintenance. By moving to a single platform, it could consolidate common functions. Three help desks were needed to support the Unix systems, and the company wanted to staff only one.

X Hits The Spot
AT&T originally considered both PCs and X terminals as the prime platform. When Owdij determined PCs would require twice as much maintenance as X terminals, the company decided on the latter and began migrating users.

Last fall, AT&T planned to swap out its last 2,500 Unix terminals. But rather than continue with X terminals, the company decided to buy NCs because they are more powerful. "We could use Java applets to place functions, such as user-interface functions, on client desktops rather than running them continually off central servers ," Owdij explains. There was no support advantage to NCs; the cost of supporting them is comparable to those for X terminals.

AT&T's experience with NCs is in line with Gartner Group's research: NCs will replace terminals, not PCs, and will therefore not significantly reduce overall end-user support costs. "We think they will be widely used in specific areas," says Cappucchio. "We see NCs being used for help-desk applications and making it simpler for technicians to respond to user inquiries. But most IS technicians will continue to work with PCs" and have to service end-user PCs.

In environments where Web demands are growing but the headcount and budget are flat, NCs might impact network loads. For instance, Boston College in Newton, Mass., has placed PCs on approximately 2,000 employees' desks, but still has 500 full-time and 1,500 part-time workers who can't access the network. Paul Dupuis, the college's assistant director of IT, says the $3,000 price tag for PCs is just too high to justify pro viding these workers with network access.

But NCs sell for only $500 to $750, a far more attractive price for equipping casual users and BC's 10,000 students. Consequently, the university has begun tinkering with NCs from Idea Corp. of Bedford, Mass. It plans to begin a pilot program this spring and could roll out NCs to employees by summer.

As a result, the number of users on the network could rise dramatically, but the IT department, which has had 90 to 100 employees for the last decade, will not increase. "In higher education, the emphasis is on keeping costs down, so we do not even think about asking for additional staffing," Dupuis says.

Because NCs are so easy to maintain, Boston College doesn't anticipate a big hit on its support staff. "We had an NC operating in half an hour and do not expect that maintaining them will be a burden," Dupuis says. NCD's Fulton agrees. Top management, he says, is asking IS departments to support more complex environments without adding staff.

So the next time you hear some claims that NCs will reduce IS costs, relax. Just think about the claims made by promoters of computer-aided software engineering, expert systems, and other technologies that failed to make a dent in the IS burden in the 1980s.

About This Special Report
This Special Report was produced by a team of InformationWeek editors and contributors. Additional editorial support was provided by Mary Avery, Elizabeth Lindholm, Larry Marion, and Chris Staiti of Triangle Publishing Services Co., of Newton, Mass.

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