Lenovo saves costs

Lenovo has unveiled a new desktop client that reduces management costs and bolsters data storage and security, while retaining full computing functionality, reports Internet News.

The Secure Managed Client (SMC) is a hard-drive free ThinkCentre desktop. It has all the looks and markings of a thin-client computer, given the cost savings that thin-clients promise.

Lenovo estimates SMC can cut the average $120 monthly spend on PC management to about $70 per desktop.

The Internet has fuelled the rise of corporate data centres, which will consist of about 6.8 million computer servers by the year 2010. Each data centre consumes the energy of about

25 000 homes, says Venturebeat.

That's why the new EcoRAM computer architecture described by Flash memory chipmaker Spansion, and Silicon Valley firm Virident Systems, is important. It is one of the keys to making servers and the data centres that house them more energy-efficient.

EcoRAM was unveiled this summer by California-based Spansion, a public company that will make EcoRAM-enabled Flash memory chips, and by Virident, which has been working on the idea for the past few years.

Ulteo is now offering what Microsoft and Citrix will not: a server-based computing solution for the Linux desktop and Linux applications, blogs ZDNet.

The company, which late last year launched the first OpenOffice open source desktop online, has made available the Open Virtual Desktop, which is essentially the free, server-installable version of its online desktop.

Unlike Microsoft and Citrix's respective terminal service solutions, Ulteo's Open Virtual Desktop serves up the Linux desktop to any Web browser, including Firefox and Internet Explorer.