Thin client shipments surge
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Annual shipments of thin client devices are expected to top the 1 million mark in EMEA during 2005, according to IDC, after robust growth in the first half of the year.
Annual shipments of thin client devices are expected to top the 1 million mark in EMEA during 2005, according to IDC, after robust growth in the first half of the year.
The IT market watcher says that thin client hardware shipments increased by 39% in the six months to 30 June compared to the corresponding period a year earlier. IDC analyst Chris Ingle says the most important factor in the growth was that major businesses and government institutions were assessing the manageability and security of their desktop estates.
"Over the past two years these businesses have carried out evaluations of thin client as an alternative to traditional PCs and have seen total cost of ownership (TCO) and manageability benefits from thin clients," he says.
Over the next few years IDC expects the market to expand right across the EMEA region. Compound annual growth will be around 25% in the UK, Germany and France, says IDC. Major PC upgrades will be a catalyst. "As customers look towards the coming Windows Vista migration they will be considering all options, one of which is thin client," says Ingle.
Growth has been particularly strong in the emerging central and eastern European markets, with Poland and the Czech Republic singled out as demand centres, where multinationals find the ease of deployment and operation a plus-point. "Thin client meets the need for a robust and easy to maintain device in areas where communications infrastructure exists but IT support is expensive or hard to obtain," says IDC.
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