‘NComputing’ Developers Tout Savings for Schools

One of an emerging array of choices for low-cost computing in schools, “thin client” computing is an old idea that has been made new again.

The term refers to a decades-old arrangement in which many low-capacity computers—or “thin clients”—depend on a powerful central computer server to do most of their data processing. The data is passed back and forth between clients and servers over a network.

By contrast, in a “thick client” setup—by far the most common in schools today—separate computers perform nearly all their own data processing and use the servers only for...