Citrix / Terminal Server? Newbie seeks pointers

[robatwork]

Hi,

At the moment we put our software onto a Windows PC - "Main PC", share the relevant directory, and run this software from between 1 and 5 other PCs on the network. They only have 1 local file related to our software - this checks for existance of the network drive, and starts up a batch file, which in turn starts up the menu system - all hosted on the Main PC.

This works fine, but now we want to introduce things like remote access, and hosting the sofware on a server.

One solution that springs to mind is using a server with thin clients (or other PCs with terminal services client).

I have a couple of questions regarding this, as I don't have that much experience in this area:

Would Terminal Services running on the server be adequate for this?

Our customers are very price sensitive - would Citrix be overkill for this scenario?

Either way - what would this cost, approximately, for say 5 users in total?

Remote working is important - can we setup a remote PC to think it's printing on a server-attached printer, but in fact print on one connected to the remote PC?

Can a remote site simply have a thin client and broadband router, and VPN into the server, or would it need a PC?

I'd appreciate any advice about this.

Many thanks
Rob

 

[TonyFal]

Rob,

Hosting an application can actually increase profit margins in the long run. While the start-up cost of doing it yourself can be cost prohibitive you can always co-locate your application at an ASP.

I recently refered a client in a similar situation to infonectASP.com. With this company you essentially rent space/licenses from them. they install your software on their servers and instead of selling your software to a customer for a one time fee you sell them monthly access (Recurring revenue!!!) per user.

Tony
tony@ccaheaven.com

Tony

http://www.ccaheaven.com