Wyse Z90 Thin Client Offers Fat Performance
Wyse Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Jeff McNaught is not the kind of guy who holds much back when it comes to pitching new products, and Wyse is more than happy to have an enthusiastic, articulate guy like him out on the road, proselytizing to the press corps, pundits, bloggers, et al. Therefore, I tend to be somewhat skeptical when I talk to him, but after hearing his spiel about the new Wyse Z90 thin client, it's hard not to be impressed.
The Z90, which is based on Windows Embedded Standard 7, employs AMD G-series processors, and according to McNaught, blows the doors off its nearest competitor, HP's t5740, in both low gear (the single core version) and high gear (the dual core version). Specifically, he says the single core model is 23 percent faster than the t5740, while the dual core offering is 187 percent faster "in its most aggressive configuration." Throw in support for 5 gigabit/sec USB ports, available integrated A/B/G/N dual band Wi-Fi or FibreNIC and the "very fast" claims made by McNaught ring anything but hollow. There's also plenty of headroom for video-based apps such as the high-res displays used for health care.
All this while consuming a stingy, ENERGY STAR-compliant 12.9 watts of power.
The Z90 shines even more when it is paired with Wyse's new "hugely intelligent" software technology, Project Pyramid, which auto-configures the Z90 in two minutes once you take it out of the box, plug it into the network, and hit the power button. McNaught says this capability makes the Z90 the first, self-configuring client product line in the desktop virtualization industry, and also makes it the equal of a PC. You know Wyse put a lot of work into Project Pyramid, when he says, "We filed eight patents on this technology."
"Ninety percent of desktops now are PCs, but that number will change to ten percent in 10 years. I am convinced now that that is really going to happen," he adds.
The Z90 is not cheap, and it is anything but a zero client, but it secures Wyse's status as a VDI player to watch.
Wyse also announced a joint agreement with Kaviza, which offers the VDI In-a-Box desktop virtualization product, to offer Wyse-Kaviza for SMB, which Wyse calls "a low-cost yet complete virtual desktop solution designed to help small and medium-sized businesses realize the key benefits of desktop virtualization with minimum complexity."
Project Pyramid will be available during Q1 2011 for Windows Embedded Standard 7, and in Q2 for Windows Embedded Standard 2009.
Posted by Bruce Hoard on 02/03/2011 at 12:48 PM