Thin Client Solutions

Get the Skinny on HP's New Mobile Thin Client

Ever wish you could connect only to the software and apps you need to run your business – whether it’s a customer database, accounting software or email – or all of these – from anywhere? And, to do so without the threat of important data or files being lost, stolen or hacked? If so, computing devices known as mobile thin clients might be just what your business needs.

HP last week introduced a new mobile thin client, the new mt40 Mobile Thin Client, in Tokyo at VForum to allow you wirelessly connect to applications while roaming a campus, or the world.

Having a mobile thin client lets companies give workers their own computing device to access company-specific applications. There is no hard drive on the device, and only those programs, files and applications that they want the worker to use are on the thin client,” appearing on its dashboard after logging in. Click any program and you are in.

Think of the mt40 for use in hospitals, government offices, call centers and schools, where workers have to access the personal data of other people, or have specific tasks to do day in and day out. You can limit what each person has access to, and still enable them to work remotely.

HP also gives IT a lot of ways to manage the mt40 – it runs a software tool called Device Manager (v4.5) connecting it to the IT department and vice versa. So, in other words, the employee never has to troubleshoot or update the device, IT can reach it remotely.

Your company also has to be running virtualization in the data center to use the mt40, but it can be easily added to the corporate computing mix if you have already virtualized servers to reduce your number of physical servers, or who have virtualized storage to store more data, more efficiently. Using thin clients, for “desktop virtualization,” is the next step.

A fun fact about the mt40 - its design is based on the chassis of HP’s reliable ProBook and carries some of those features - it even has a hidden drain under the keyboard that allows anything spilled on the device to safely pass through it and not ruin the mt40!