In a civil engineering firm, there are 6 desktop computers (Dual core 2.6GHz CPU with 3GB of RAM). Each of them are running the following applications: Etabs, SaFe, AutoCAD, 3DMax, Sap, Office on Microsoft Windows. We are currently thinking about upgrading these desktop PCs to Corei7 CPUs with more amount of RAM. But is it a better and more economic idea to buy and install an application server to run all these soft wares in a single server and all the clients access to this server remotely using thin clients (just terminals)? Will we have a better performance? What's your idea?
Thanks in advance