In this tough time of economic slowdown, when everyone is hesitant to shell out money for buying additional personal computers (PCs), even if it is effective in enhancing the productivity of his/her organization – most of them will well accept the idea of enhancing utilization of existing IT resources through the most economically extended work terminals.
We all are well acquainted with the concept of virtualization solutions, however, NComputing, a company offering desktop virtualization solutions, has created an avenue that significantly reduces the cost of computerization, especially suitable for low-budget organizations. The company provides both hardware and software.
Why is it required?
When a customer finds need for multiple PCs in the work environment (school, college, office, cyber cafe, club etc.), this offers an alternative to buying new PCs. According to Manish Sharma, Vice president, Asia Pacific, NComputing, “With our products, you can add users to existing PCs for a small fraction of the cost of another PC. Only with Keyboard, Mouse and Monitor, you can work as if using a full fledged system.”
“Desktop computers are very powerful today. However, all their capacities are not utilized often, which can be used for further computing. Our products facilitate that,” says Sharma.
Because of this price advantage – places like schools, business/government and many other organizations, where otherwise a number of PCs are required, – this solution may be very useful. This also facilitates monitoring of all the terminals through the operating system.
What does it do?
The NComputing virtualization software allows one PC to act like many. Its hardware allows users to connect their keyboards, monitors, mice, and speakers to the shared PC.
How simple is it?
No special training is required to work with NComputing products. The software supports both Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems. Basically, there are two series of devices, known as, X-series and L-series.
X-series virtualization kits are useful when all users are within 10 meters and the shared PC has one or two open PCI slots. L-series is useful when users are more than 10 metres away from the shared PC. It is connected across a standard Ethernet local-area network. Sharma says, “All NComputing software and hardware products are designed to be easy to fix up, secure, and maintain by people with basic PC skills. The solid-state access devices need no maintenance as they don’t contain damageable components like hard drives, fans and power-hungry processors. Average life of these devices is 5-7 years.”
How is the acceptance?
Worldwide around 10 lakh units of NComputing’s virtualization kits have been sold in the last two years. As per the company, about 1 lakh units are functioning in India as on date.
Sharma informs, “As the acquisition cost of these products is very less, 60-70% customers are from education sector. There is a growing interest among the corporates. Of course, SMBs are good customers.”
What is there for resellers?
In the words of Sharma, “For any standard IT product, there is pressure of competitive prices, which is not the case here. The concept of the product itself widens the chance of good volume selling. There is enough margin too.” At present, Redington is NComputing’s national distributor.
Let me quote Sharma again on NComputing’s business in India, “We are on a very strong growth path here, primarily through the channel. Our entire sales strategy is channel centric. Most of our users are in tier 2/3 cities and beyond. We follow the same mantra (grow by selling through channel) everywhere.”
Parting shot
The time has come when the IT departments can no longer go on extending their budgets for computerization of the entire organization, owing to that, these types of devices will find huge potential in the days ahead. Yet another very wide scope lies in the education sector, we are approaching a time – when each student from the very junior level will need to gain expertise in computing. Obviously, in our country to provide one computer to each student, we have no economic alternative but to use such devices. Last but not the least potential lies in the domestic sector too – which is growing silently and slowly.