September 27th, 2006
NComputing's $70 PC
NComputing is taking the old time sharing concept and applying it to PCs for about $70 per user. "NComputing is a way to deploy technology at the bottom end of the economic spectrum," said company CEO Steve Dukker during his six-minute demo at DemoFall 2006. Today's energy efficient $350 PC can support seven users, Dukker said. So far the company has installed 130,000 shared PCs, 80 percent in developing countries and the remainder in rural U.S. schools. NStation is available in PCI or Ethernet versions. Users share the resources of a single computer's CPU, memory, HDD, and other components, using NComputing's terminal software. It's a tethered version of the $100 laptop that Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child non-profit is trying to bring to developing nations.
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
