§§§FAQ

1. What is smart client technology?

The term Smart Client was coined to highlight the differences between the typical "Rich Client" applications of yesteryear and the next generation of client applications. Smart client computing combines the best characteristics of the thin and rich client paradigms, offering low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) with applications that t ake advantage of high-powered desktop PCs and no-touch deployment of both data and software.

Microsoft is extensively marketing smart client technology as part of its .NET Framework initiative. This excerpt from a Microsoft article defines smart clients and their benefits:

“Key capabilities now exist which mean that we can t ake full advantage of the rich client model, providing the user with an excellent user experience, while at the same time reaping the benefits of centralized deployment and update. In short, this new generation of client applications, the so-called "smart" clients, provides the best of both worlds and adds the intelligence to manage data and connectivity to produce an extremely compelling user experience,

IBM has also embraced the smart client approach, labeling it “IBM Workplace Client Technology … the new computing model for dynamically downloading rich user experiences through managed clients.” IBM also states that the technology “falls neatly within the continuum between the traditional client-server computing model, and the more recent Web- or browser-based computing model.”