For a project I'm working on the customer ordered Raspberry Pi3 Thin Client from ViewSonic to evaluate. Why is this interesting? Citrix made the promise to release a Thin Client blow $100 dollar to end, in my opinion, stupid discussion about Thin- and Fat Clients and the initial price for the device.

Thin Client vendors have blown up the price for their devices that many customers said it's the same or even more expensive as a fat client. The customer total leaves out the fact that Thin Clients have normally a much longer lifetime than a fat client. I have customers still using the same Thin Clients for more than 10 years! The guy who is purchasing the device for the company doesn't know about it and just compare A with B and is a comparison between apples and pears - it's simply not the same!

I'm a fan of using what strategic products offer before considering a 3rd party solution. In some companies, it seems to be common to solve problems or gaps with yet another tool or utility. Those companies have an arsenal of 3rd party vendors and they do not always revisit their decision afterward to determine if it's still necessary to have the 3rd party solution. When looking on an architectural level, then the IT environment should be as simple as possible and for that reason, additional components or software will make it more complex to manage. A wrong mix or configuration can make things harder than they have to be. For that reason, any addition to the environment should be carefully evaluated.