During my Singapore visit, I had met with ThinSoft. They have some very interesting solutions which can reduce total cost of ownership in computing. A couple of product reviews: PC Magazine and Small Business Computing.
Says PC Magazine:
Microsoft designed Windows XP so that only one user at a time could access a given PC, either via the local desktop or a remote Terminal Services client. But the OS and today’s hardware can easily accommodate more concurrent users, especially for typical office chores. Enter WinConnect Server XP, a program that lets three remote users log onto a Windows XP system while someone is using the host machine locally.
WinConnect exploits Windows XP’s built-in Terminal Services based on Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 5.1. All of the application logic runs on the host machine; the client machine simply processes display updates and relays the user input to the host.
Small offices can run critical business applications on a WinConnect-equipped PC as the server and send them to remote desktops. Linux shops that need to run Windows programs occasionally can set up a Windows XP machine and have users access it via the WinConnect RDP 5.1 client for Linux ($99). And home users can unlock the shackles of a Smart Display device, which disables the local desktop when the mobile display is in use. With WinConnect, you can have multiple Smart Display devices accessing an XP machine without locking out local access to the system.
A neat idea!
