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Wyse Seeks Partners to Make Thin-Client PCs

Friday, 10 November 2006 by Michel Roth

In an effort to bring more of its thin-client know-how to market, Wyse Technology has packaged its technology into a single chip and reference design, and is looking for partners to bundle the product into their PC hardware.

Wyse Wednesday announced the NetClient system-on-chip, designed with partners NEC and ServerEngines. The chip empowers a hardware device to gain basic PC functionality, including local processing of graphics, video, audio and security. Compared to traditional desktops, thin-client computers can improve a company’s IT security and manageability because they draw their storage and processing ability from a remote server or data center, instead of keeping those valuable assets on every employee’s desk.

One of the first customers will be NEC, which said Monday it would use the chip in a new platform, the US100 desktop terminal. The device provides high audio and video quality in a palm-size box while reducing power consumption by 60 percent compared to conventional business desktops. NEC is selling this desktop terminal (without monitor or peripherals) for US$439 in Japan and Europe now, and in North America by the first quarter of 2007.

NEC’s product runs on the Wyse Thin OS, the centerpiece of Wyse’s new Reference Platform for Enterprise Desktop Virtualization. This platform is the first of a planned series of reference platforms, and is designed to support Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) from VMware.

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