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Client/server is dead. Long live Web services - or so many in the software industry would have users believe. Now that Web-based front ends are uniformly included with enterprise applications (and Web services promise even more functionality on all sorts of roving devices), old-fashioned terminal services applications such as Citrix seem doomed.

Yet the Web has not spelled the demise of Citrix-like services. The truth is, analysts and users say, Web apps - despite their thin-client, platform independence - often still have a pretty major downside: poor performance for remote users.

"Basically, if your application is working fine today and all you want to do is provide remote access to it, then you'd be insane not to use a terminal server-based technology like Citrix," says Brian Madden, an independent industry consultant.

Citrix and other terminal services are easy to use and deploy, especially for legacy applications that aren't Web-enabled. Providing the remote access doesn't require reworking the application or using a particular device by end users.

"With Citrix, you can be up and running in literally less than 24 hours, fully deployed. You simply can't beat that," says Mike Hughes, IS manager at Campbell Group, a Portland, Ore., timber investment and management firm.

Campbell Group struggled to provide remote access to an internal Microsoft Access-based accounting program until it hit on Citrix, Hughes says. "We tried it, and boom, it worked. When we saw how easy Citrix was, it became the way we provide remote access for everything. It's easy to manage and quick to deploy."

Hughes and one other IT staffer manage application access for about 200 PCs and servers and 150 employees at eight offices in four states. "The simpler we can keep it, the better it is. We're saving so much on manpower by not having to constantly touch those remote machines," Hughes says.

The choice is not so clear-cut if your applications already are Web-enabled.

"If the Web front end is already built-in, and it isn't costing you anything, then you'd be nuts not to use the browser," says Jason Brougham, enterprise network manager at American Medical Response, an ambulance services firm in Greenwood Village, Colo. "Citrix servers aren't free, and . . . with Citrix, you pay for an additional client license on top of your Windows license for a Windows-based app. That can add up."