Fixed Function

This provides limited use of productivity applications and no e mail or instant 

messaging, and simple browser access to specified portals. Examples include: 

Kiosk style terminals

Retail POS systems

Technical Workstation

This provides limited use of business applications, but simple office and mail 

tasks, and usually special applications needed to support specific work functions. 

Examples include:

CAD/CAM workstation

Software Development workstation

Transactional Workstation

This provides typical use of business applications, but still simple office and mail 

tasks, and limited browser access. Examples include:

HelpDesk

Order entry

Travel agents

Advanced Office

This provides a knowledge worker that utilizes office productivity suites and 

advanced messaging tools to create and distribute content. Examples include:

Project managers

Engineers

Marketing and sales

The Advanced Office presents potentially the greatest challenge in a desktop 

migration due to the challenges in maintaining similar application functionality 

and data fidelity when using Linux based equivalent applications.

3.1.2  Surveying user data

Assuming that a group or role based segment of users is identified for migration, 

then the next step would be to collect data (a technical survey) that captures all 

aspects of the workstation usage profile. This profiling data should include all 

applications that are being used, all application dependencies (for example, 

database servers), all required file types that are used, as well as client hardware 

data, peripheral dependencies, etc. 

As part of this survey, you will need to pay careful attention to evaluating 

hardware and peripheral device compatibility. Another topic that needs special 

 Chapter 3. Organizational and human factors planning 

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