Can we do without Citrix with JDE XE

We installed XE in 2001 with an AS400 as the enterprise server and 5 windows 2000 citrix servers. We have about 150 users. The citrix servers were and still are running Metaframe XPE 1.0 . We did not pay citrix support and therefore never upgraded the citrix version. Now its time to replace the citrix server hardware. The hardware itself isn' bad at all. Needless to say, the quote to upgrade (actually buy new) citrix licenses is really expensive for 150 users. I was wondering with the improvements that Microsoft has made in terminal services if citrix was still really needed. Is anyone running client/server XE without Citrix?

You have always been able to run Xe on Terminal Server, without Citrix. What I assume you mean is, can Windows Terminal Server alone handle some specific features that most people turn to Citrix for, namely Published Apps (no desktop access), mapped drives, and mapped printers.

Assuming that you are installing Windows 2003 or later, Terminal Server does have these capabilities (or close equivalents). However, I can't say that I've set someone up that way. Taking advantage of these capabilities also means that your clients are running XP or Vista and using the current Remote Desktop client.

With an upgrade to a new OS you can easily do without Citrix if you are not in the published apps mode. Just be sure your current SP level can support...sounds like your organization doesn't like staying current with releases.

You CAN run JDE XE on RDP/Terminal Server - but you need to confirm your OneWorld Service Pack level if you are planning on going to Windows 2003 Server.

Citrix still provides manageability benefits as well as "seamless" application support. 150 concurrent users might need Citrix to help spread the load across multiple servers - it IS possible to implement just Terminal Services with IP load balancing - but it is so much simpler with Citrix.

However, if you don't need the services that Citrix provides - then RDP works fine, and is in use at many customers already. I would say that Citrix is probably a "preferable" use application for those customers with more than 300 concurrent users (compared with the manageability headaches of trying to manage RDP for those user counts) - but 150 concurrent is probably not that big a deal to go with RDP and is somewhat manageable.

One thing to note, however, is the fact that since you failed to pay maintenance over the past 6 or 7 years, the cost of Citrix has actually been pretty good since you have spread the cost past the usual 5 year depreciation period.