why do companies like Longs and Textron want to get rid of their "fat client" PC with their disk drives?

Question

their individual package

Answer 1

In one word: management

The replacements are known as thin clients, which are much easier to admin by IT because...

1) There are no discs to load, so the PC's can't get infected by viruses, less time spent on antivirus, virus eradication, and so on Policies could also prevent ANY program from being executed from the local PC's CD or USB drives, or just plain deactivate all of them except during a tech's login.

2) Ditto for all the rest of malware, spyware, whatever-ware. E-mail worms are a separate issue.

3) Files are stored on the NETWORK, nothing's saved locally, thus security is much easier and more secure. Again, LESS TO MANAGE.

4) Security of data is easier to maintain, as there's a clear log who had accessed what, where as it's nearly impossible to track who had accessed local copy of data.

5) Nuke the HD and re-image can be done in seconds, instead of minutes, and deployment of a new PC is pretty much drop it on a desk and go. With original you have to reimage the HD, run all the AV and updates, and so on and so forth. Even WITH an image of HD it could still take an hour.