National Post
Monday, March 20, 2000
Page: E2
Section Special Report: IT Monthly
Byline: Sandra Mingail
Source: Financial Post

"...Stephen Ibaraki, a computer educator at British Columbia's Capilano College believes it is. He believes initial market acceptance of thin clients three years ago was hampered by immature screen technology and insufficient computer power, both of which are no longer barriers. Even more compelling, say Mr. Ibaraki, is the potential integration of thin clients with the booming Internet technology. "The way thin client technology is going, I see it as merging of the mainframe concept, the client-server concept and the Web-integration concept," says Mr. Ibaraki. "A truly distributed Internet application concept..."

"...In this integrated scenario, says Mr. Ibaraki, we will have some form of thin client to receive software components from the Internet. And we won't be tied to our desktop. Infrared and wireless technology will deliver anywhere, anytime computing. You don't need a local computer with local data storage...all you need is some sort of intelligence to connect to the Internet," comments Mr. Ibaraki. "Then, from the Internet you can get all your applications. ASPs will be a big part of that."