Harry Enbom
IT Manager for the City of Kristinehamn

ThinLinc increases the quality in the schools of Kristinehamn

In 2005 the municipality performed an analysis and a project which revealed big differences in the quality of the IT support for the different schools. The analysis also showed that there were big gains to be made from looking over the IT environment of the schools. In 2006 a solution for creating a more cost efficient maintenance for the schools is implemented, at the same time as they want to make sure all students gets the same high quality in their education.

The solution was Server Based Computing with the ThinLinc terminal server solution from Cendio. ThinLinc is used to centralize applications through the use of thin clients. The system supports application servers, such as Windows Terminal Server. This makes it possible to mix applications from different platforms on the same desktop.

- In April the rollout of the new solution will begin. All schools will get an equal IT standard, says Harry Enbom, IT Manager for the City of Kristinehamn. ThinLinc is much more cost efficient than all the other Server Based Computing solutions. The cost of ThinLinc is several million lower than the other solutions, Harry Enbom continues.

The advantages of Server Based Computing in the new IT environment of Kristinehamn mean that the municipality can buy and install thin terminals instead of computers which leads to even more savings. These are also less desirable to steal which is an advantage since computer thefts is a constant problem in the schools of the country. That ThinLinc is based on Linux and Open Source software is also in line with the municipality's commitment to open standards.

- The schools of Kristinehamn have about 1100 workstations today, which is something we would like to increase and the project is an important step in that direction. We also want a stable system with few interruptions. The administration costs go down since the system becomes easier to manage, says Harry Enbom.