Wyse Gets Top Marks From Windsor Unified School District (WUSD)

School District Uses Wyse Thin Clients to Enhance Security, Streamline IT Administration while Reducing Power Consumption

SAN JOSE, Calif. – 03/19/2007 - The Windsor Unified School District (WUSD), a distinguished and progressive school district in Northern California, is using Wyse thin clients to become an IT "role model" for other school districts. What started out as an initial pilot project in late 2006 will see the entire school district converting to Wyse thin clients within the next two years. Currently, WUSD is utilizing Wyse thin-client desktops running SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop from Novell and Citrix Presentation Server as a standard operating environment. This combination of Wyse thin clients, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Citrix eliminated any platform connectivity issues, allowing users to easily share and access information while seamlessly being able run any PC application. The school district is also going out to bond and hopefully build two new schools in the next three years. When complete, more than 5,500 students, faculty and staff will be using Wyse thin clients on a state of the art fiber optic network. "We just couldn't keep throwing money at the problem," said Heather Carver, Director of Technology and Information Services for the Windsor Unified School District. "We had to figure out a way of reigning in costs while still being able to deliver a robust computing environment. We were looking at a tight IT budget, legacy PC and Macintosh technology when we began implementing Wyse thin clients. We now have a secure and centrally managed computing environment, making the most of our limited resources." By moving to a Wyse thin-client architecture running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, WUSD has reduced its hardware costs by 75 percent and software costs by nearly 95 percent. With fewer servers, the district has also reduced its energy costs by 25 percent. All of this saving accounts for nearly 50 percent of the district's IT budget that it can now allocate towards other projects.

In addition, the total cost of ownership associated with thin clients, coupled with the lower energy usage, will save thousands of taxpayer dollars. This saved money can be used by the school districts to purchase additional resources for the students that they would not normally be able to have.

"The demand for thin computing in the education sector continues to skyrocket because the ROI can't be ignored," said Jeff McNaught, VP Marketing & Customer Support for Wyse Technology. "Our thin computing solutions go beyond mere cost savings, they give IT managers and CIOs a way to simplify the network administration process, enhance security while being environmentally friendly in the process."

It is the intention of WUSD to partner with Wyse and Novell to be a model school district, using their products to transform the school district over the next three years to become a model for other school districts in Northern California to emulate.

WUSD is comprised of seven schools, four of which are California distinguished schools, and has 5,200 students and 250 teachers and staff. Windsor High School has been named one of California's top ten most promising high schools by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For more information on the school district please visit http://www.wusd.org.