You may have seen or heard about virtualization/thin clients/zero clients before, as I've written about all of the above in DA. This type of computing makes a ton of sense for schools, which have large fleets of computers, each one with multiple users, low technology budgets and limited IT staff. So having virtual desktops running on thin clients is a great solution, as it allows for much less frequent replacement schedules, far less maintenance, easier for multiple users, and enables individual users to keep all of their information in the cloud, either local or on the big ol' Internet.
So, there are a number of big players in the K12 space for thin clients or zero clients. But I think the company most out in front is HP. Their new virtualization solutions combine everything a school would need into one package: hardware like monitors, thin client appliances, servers and the like, as well as packaged software such as Microsoft's Windows MultiPoint Server 2010.
Well HP's latest is something you might not have seen before. The new 4320t is a mobile thin client. So just like a desktop thin client, this is a machine designed to be used with a server or the cloud, but is a laptop instead, obviously adding mobility. It has very little hard drive space and not as much processing power as a full-fledged laptop... because you don't need much when you're using it as a thin client and not storing much, if anything, on it. It's slated to be released later this month, so check back for pricing then, which I'm guessing will be much lower than a laptop. Might it be a worthy consideration for a one-to-one program?
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