http://campustechnology.com By Dian Schaffhauser

A number of colleges have gone public with their deployments of the NComputing multiuser system, among them Fresno Pacific University in Central California, Florida Atlantic University in southeast Florida, and Palm Beach Community College in Florida. The NComputing access device allows a single PC to serve multiple users, each with his or her own monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The access device itself has no CPU, memory, or moving parts. The NComputing X300 model supports up to seven students sharing a single PC, while the company's L-series supports up to 31 users on a high end PC.

NComputing takes a standard PC and basically turns it into a thin client host, allowing one machine to service the needs of many. Our Arther Cole wrote on this back in August of 2007, and the product has improved significantly since then.

I met with folks at the company this week and they reported that they are fast closing in on 1 million seats using this technology, largely in education and the third world, indicating that the concept has traction and some solid economic benefits. But part of the reason it is so successful is that Microsoft provides special licensing discounts to third-world countries and education markets, making the result more cost-effective.

Chicago (IL) - Once in a while we come across a company whose idea and products just make sense. Ncomputing is such a company and it may take some time until you will hear more about its products, but we do believe that the firm has what it takes to popularize cloud computing for the masses and become Intel’s biggest threat yet. We are talking about the ability to split one PC into possibly dozens of sub 5-watt computers with a cost of less than $100 each. To us, it is the first convincing cloud computing idea that has the potential to reach more users than any other computing product before.