One of the biggest gripes of the RDP protocal was its inability to provide the same experience for the end users as to what they’d expect from a standard pc when accessing rich multimedia applications and streaming video. Although, Citrix’s ICA client helped alliveiate this pain for many schools the costs didn’t out weigh the overall benefit.
If you are currently using HP thin clients and the RDP protocal or if you’re investigating this type of technology for your school then you need to check out the newly enhanced RDP client coming out shortly from HP.
HP’s enhanced RDP was developed to shift the burden of decoding video away from the server and onto the thin clients. When a student clicks on a multimedia video for example the video will now run seamlessly just as if they were running it on their standard pc. The new RDP will also allow for a wider range of USB peripherals, which didn’t work well in the previous version.
HP will begin shipping the new RDP in January on their Windows-based clients and will also allow the customers using older HP thin clients to download the RDP software for Free.