Corporates and vendors have been faced with the challenge of ensuring that the data stored on their mobile computers is kept safe from the hands of industry spies and competitors for some time now.
While innovations such as hard disk encryption, strong password mechanisms and biometric technology have done a great deal to guarantee that if a notebook is stolen the data on it will be useless, some vendors are pushing the envelope even further.
One such vendor is Acer, which has gone as far as building functionality into its mobile platforms to keep the notebooks safe from theft.
"Under the banner of Anti-Theft technology, Acer has utilised the functionality available in its GraviSense technology (which detects a bump to the hard disk and automatically parks the hard drive head, thus keeping the drive safe from harm) to detect any kind of motion denoting notebook theft, reacting with a loud, ear-piercing sonic alarm," says Traci Maynard, business unit manager at Tarsus Technologies.
"This alarm is so loud, in fact, that most thieves will automatically drop the notebook and cover their ears," Maynard chuckles.
Although this Anti-Theft feature is extremely effective against theft, Maynard says it does, however, require some form of user intervention. "Through the easy to use interface utilised by all of Acer`s Empowering Technologies, users have the ability to enable and disable the protection feature. Once set up, it can be easily activated with a keystroke or mouse click when the user walks away from their notebook or set to be automatically triggered after a certain length of inactivity.
"This feature can be disabled by merely entering a user-defined password. Nothing could be simpler," she says.
What sets this solution apart from the numerous other third-party options available on the market is the fact that it relies on hardware already built into the Acer mobile platforms and works together with the operating system to deny access to notebook data when the alarm is sounding.
"While the protection feature is active, users are prevented from accessing the `alt-tab` keystroke or using similar commands such as `ctrl-shift-esc`, `ctrl-alt-del` or any of the windows keys or the system task bar. It`s a fully-locked down solution," she opines.
"We`re really excited to see what the response to this new feature will be," Maynard continues, "since it has the ability to curb the growing issue of notebook theft in the country.
"We feel it`s an innovative and effective measure to protect users from notebook theft and we look forward to the competitive advantage it affords companies standardising on the Acer brand," she concludes.
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With 21 years of experience in the ICT industry, Tarsus is the leading value-added distributor in South Africa, specialising in the supply of the world`s foremost PC and peripheral hardware brands to the local reseller channel.
Tarsus strives to meet the channel`s needs for credit funding, stock availability and efficient logistics, ensuring that resellers are able to deliver the highest quality service to their customers, focus on support and compiling the best overall solutions for their end-user customer base at the lowest possible cost.
The company prides itself on its flexibility, adaptability, knowledge, skills and successful track record combined with an industry-leading ability to manage large rollouts. These are the reasons Tarsus has consistently been rated as the top distributor in the country by international vendors, resellers and the IT media alike.
With its strong commitment to the South African channel, Tarsus is able to not only make the reseller channel more efficient, but more importantly, it plays a vital role in dramatically reducing the costs of doing business in the local ICT market.
Brands represented by the Tarsus stable include industry leaders like Acer, Cisco, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Oki, Samsung, TallyGenicom, Targus and Wyse Technology.
More information about Tarsus is available at http://www.tarsus.co.za.
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