HP Thin Clients Offer Environmental, Multi-Vendor Features

Just in case you feel guilty about tossing that piece of litter out your car window, or driving a three-ton SUV, you can perk up by purchasing the new HP t5550, t5565 or t5570 thin clients. According to HP, the t5550 family is so environmentally conscious that it is has been recognized as the industry's first EPEAT Gold registered thin client (meaning they have met 23 required environmental performance criteria). Moreover, in addition to being Energy Star qualified, these new devices are free of Brominated Flame Retardents/Polyvinyl Chloride, and their case parts contain more than 30 percent post-consumer recycled plastic. Al Gore probably has a ton of these babies in his new, more energy-efficient mansion.

Brominated Flame Retardents aside, HP is touting the t5550's new HP Easy Tools, which Tad Bodeman, America's Thin Client Category Manager, says avoid vendor lock-in by including pre-installed VMware, Citrix and Microsoft plug-ins, and enable customers to fire up and configure their t5550 devices in less than five minutes with the help of a guided wizard and four simple steps. The end result is a cost of $249 per thin client.

Bodeman also says these new thin clients benefit from the availability of an integrated wireless configurability option that was previously restricted to higher-end products. "This commercially battletested wireless capability is ready to go," he notes, adding that HP also offers the t5550s with dual digital monitor support.

Bodeman further points out that VDI is a productive platform for the t5550 series, and that the Personal Systems Group--which he says is growing at a rate of 30 percent annually--views VDI as "a key opportunity" for future growth and profitability.

The new HP Thin Clients also include the SuperScalar VIA Nano u3500 CPU and VX900 Integrated Graphics Processor, which offers hardware-assisted multimedia decoding that HP says rivals traditional PCs. When combined with the standard dual digital monitor support, six USB ports and the HP Universal Print Drive Driver, the t5550s provide the "rich, PC-like user experience" that is all the rage in VDI environments today.

Posted by Bruce Hoard on 01/03/2011 at 12:48 PM