In the enterprise computing market, being thin is far from in.

Server-centric computer manufacturer Wyse Technologies plans to announce Monday the results of a survey which showed that two-thirds of respondents prefer to use a diskless thin client terminal rather than a traditional desktop PC.

Wyse paid for the survey of 110 regular computer users in the U.K. But if history is a guide, promising market studies will not easily translate into increased sales of thin clients.

“The thin client market is not a big market,” said Bob O’Donnell, an analyst at research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) in Framingham, Massachusetts. “It has grown, but not in the way that the industry had thought it would.”

San Jose, California’s Wyse has been making low-cost computers that access applications from a central server or network since 1994. It is the biggest player in a stubbornly small market. In 2003, Wyse had estimated annual sales of $200 million.

Wyse has a revenue share of 37 percent of the worldwide thin client market, according to IDC. King of Prussia, Pennsylvania’s Neoware, with a market share of 19 percent, is second and computing giant Hewlett-Packard, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, comes in third at 15 percent.

“Wyse is an unknown even in the IT sector,” said Mr. O’Donnell. “Thin clients sell a mere fraction of the amount that desktop PCs do.” In the second quarter of 2004, 1.5 million thin clients were shipped worldwide, less than 3 percent of the enterprise desktop market, he added. The global thin client market currently stands at around $560 million.

Still, Mr. O’Donnell believes that the thin client market will grow to about 10 percent of the enterprise desktop market by 2008, because the need for desktop PCs will drop as the market for laptop computers grows.

British market research firm Winmark conducted the survey in July using participants who completed a battery of everyday business tasks using Microsoft Office software on two similarly equipped machines: one was a Wyse thin client, the other a PC.

The survey found that of the 110 respondents, 67 preferred the thin client, while 29 preferred the PC. The rest had no preference.

According to Don McCall, product marketing manager at computer manufacturer Dell, which also makes thin client devices, consumer education is key.

“The most important issue is the training of the IT departments of companies,” he said. “They need to be shown that thin clients may actually be a better alternative for their organization.”

IDC’s Mr. O’Donnell said that in many cases, companies do not want to transition from a desktop network to server-centric computing because of the hidden costs.

“To switch to a thin client network, companies have to buy a few more servers and replace all the PCs with thin clients,” he said. “Even though thin clients are cheap, it still comes to quite a bit of money for mid-sized companies.”

A thin client costs around $300. Buying 10,000 of these machines would make the transition to thin clients an expensive affair, said Mr. O’Donnell.

Mike Deneffe, senior director at Wyse, said that thin clients become much more cost-effective in the long run since the devices last twice as long as desktops.

“Thin clients will not only save you money, they are also the best option for security – as protection against viruses, and for keeping data confidential,” said Mr. Deneffe.

Dell’s Mr. McCall agrees. He believes thin clients to be ideally suited for hospitals, where client confidentiality is an absolute must.

“Because the data is stored in one safe location, it is more secure than if it was stored in different locations, as in a traditional network,” said Mr. McCall. “It is perfect for companies that need to keep their vital data secure.”   

Mission Internal Medical Group (MIMG), a health care organization located in Mission Viejo, California, switched to thin clients last year. Network engineer Scott Nichols said that the move brought several advantages.

“We have 40-plus physicians and over 200 employees,” he said. “We carry a lot of confidential data. By keeping the data in one secure place, employees are able to access the information that concerns them, and no other.”