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this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2026
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Running with thin clients for office workers has been default for large corporations for literally decades. Hell it's even done in engineering heavy professions too. It's the entire business model of companies like Citrix, and it's extremely popular.
As for small(er) businesses, no they're probably not going to like it, but they hold little to no sway in the matter, so their opinions don't matter compared to the multi-billion international businesses that fuel this.
And outsourcing IT infrastructure is wildly popular for businesses of all sizes, because it's less hassle and direct management when you just pay a third party to deal with it.
The default? I've never worked for a corporation with thin clients as the main workstation for employees. The only place I worked at with thin clients was a federal government office.
Can't believe this nonsense has so many updoots.
I think you are overestimating just how many big companies use a thin client-like system. But I admit I might be underestimating it. Out of personal experience, I used to work for a pretty big global company and every employee got their own work laptop to use. And that was a company with 30.000+ employees worldwide. So maybe that is my bias in this, and I would think companies like that wouldn't so easily give up their digital sovereignty.
Would you consider that laptop particularly robust? Was your rapid compute power critical to your role?
In my very similar case, the answers were: No and No
A lot of the work I did was subtly cloud-based. If the internet was slow, "local" tasks slowed significantly.
They don't have to give up digital sovereignty. They'lll just subscribe to the Executive plan which grants them more control for cheaper than 30,000 laptops
Oh sweet summer child no it is not. I've spent 25+ years in corporate now. Aside from set situations like BCP we are not using thin clients. They're cumbersome, an absolute bitch to manage, and quite frankly they're shit (underpowered) and not flexible.
Sure you may get some pockets of orgs that use thin clients across the board but I highly doubt it's common.
I work in IT for a large healthcare system that runs its EMR (electronic medical record) entirely through Citrix. So yes, yes we are using thin clients. And so is our largest competitor.
Aren’t anecdotes fun, my sweet summer child? You shouldn’t speak with such authority when you have no idea what you’re talking about.
The initial claim was that thin clients are the "default" for large companies, and yes we can confidently say that's bullshit.
I'm not surprised that healthcare could be an exception, given all the pii that is dealt with there. But thin clients are not the default at most companies.
It's insane how people can't just admit they they're blatantly wrong about something and instead play this gaslighting game where they pretend something is unknowable.
The global size of the thin client market is less than $3 billion. Do you honestly believe that covers most "large corporations" on the planet? I guarantee you that employers with thin clients as the default workstation aren't just a minority, they're a niche market. https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/articles/thin-clients-global-strategic-business-103200706.html
This is the fun thing about The Internet is that neither of us have any idea what we are talking about.
What I can tell you is in finance the use of thin clients is niche and is not a replacement for a laptop/desktop. It's been tried time and time again.
Yes we virtualize applications using Citrix but again those are niche.
Now, healthcare may or may not be a different beast altogether.
Question, how are users accessing EMR. Are they using a thin client workstation for that along with their word, excel, outlook, etc. or are they logging into a portal from their company issued laptop/desktop?
I'm at a hospital right now and everything here is powered off of laptops hooked up to portable physical workstations.
Regardless, I digress. I don't give enough of a shit to care further lol.
I can assure you at least one large US bank uses thin clients extensively.
IDK, in broadcast infrastructure it's thin clients and virtual machines all the way down, and yes it causes tons of problems.