NComputing
L200 Ethernet-Based Terminal: $269
www.ncomputing.com

THE EMERGENCE OF DUAL- AND QUAD-CORE PROCESSORS HAS everyone thinking that if some performance is good, more must certainly be better. In many cases, that’s true. But when your customer is buying workstations for employees using Web-based applications or simple word processing, there is such a thing as overkill and unnecessary cost.

Rather than sell individual workstations into mainstream environments, deploy one desktop with a modern CPU and 2GB of RAM. Attach that host to a router. Then connect up to 10 of NComputing’s L200 Access Terminals to the same switch, each with its own monitor, keyboard, speakers, Ethernet jack, and so on. The workstation’s resources are divided amongst the terminals. Because terminals don’t have storage of their own, if you plug a USB flash drive into a terminal, data transferred from the USB drive to the terminal’s desktop is actually stored on the host machine. Cost stays low, centralization is essentially built-in, and management becomes much easier.

Xerox
Phaser 6110MFP/S Multifunction Printer: $649
www.xerox.com

XEROX’S NEW PHASER 6110 color laser, priced at $299, is a remarkable value to SMBs looking for a light-duty unit. Step up to the printer’s big brother—the Phaser 6110MFP—and add even more flexibility to offices on a budget. The Phaser 6110MFP adds copy and scan functionality, both features you’d have to pay much more for purchased separately.

Yet the true measure of an MFP’s value lies in how well it performs its duties. Naturally, the Phaser 6110MFP prints as well as the 6110 color laser for which it’s named, churning out up to four pages per minute in color and 17 in monochrome. A 24,000-page monthly duty cycle should be plenty, even when shared across an entire organization through its 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port. The copier can collate, reduce, and enlarge. The scanner supports five different formats and four destinations, including email and network addresses.

Socket Mobile
SoMo 650 Mobile Computer: $815
www.socketmobile.com

THE SOMO 650 MOBILE Computer might look like a generic PDA, but Socket Mobile sets the handheld apart with powerful specs and a number of pre-tested and configured peripherals that expand the mobile device’s business utility.

Addressing automation, inventory management, patient care, and merchandising applications requires a bevy of communications technologies. Socket Mobile powers the SoMo 650 with 128MB of SDRAM and a 624 MHz Intel PXA270. Despite the smallish 256MB of internal flash storage, you can expand by upselling CF and/or SD memory cards.

Being able to communicate wirelessly across Bluetooth v2.0 and 802.11b/g networks is what gives the SoMo 650 its mobile appeal. Socket Mobile sells handheld scanners, RFID readers, and mag stripe readers that work with the SoMo 650, facilitating convenient data collection from almost anywhere.

NEC
MultiSync LCD5710 Display: $14,999
www.necdisplay.com

COMBINING A SOLID DISPLAY, MEDIA SERVER, and LAN EQUIPMENT connecting the two can offer tremendous digital signage value beyond the individual components. Of course, picking the right pieces can be tricky.

Get off on the right foot with a massive, gorgeous LCD guaranteed to turn heads wherever it’s installed. NEC’s MultiSync LCD5710-BK is a business-class display sporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1080, yielding true high-definition output. The LCD5710 is made for signage. It features the NEC Digital Signage Technology Suite, consisting of a special film mode for movie playback, TileMatrix technology for enabling video walls, and TileComp, which compensates for each display’s bezel in a video wall to create a more seamless image. A 16ms response time provides the pixel performance needed for fluid video, and NEC’s three-year warranty protects the MultiSync display from failure, even in the face of always-on signage applications.

Primera
Bravo XRn Network Disc Publisher: $8,995
www.primera.com

YOUR CUSTOMER COULD BE A PR FIRM SENDING OUT PRODUCT information, a real estate broker firing off marketing material, or a system builder creating driver disks. When it comes to propagating a lot of data through a convenient format, mainstream disc media can’t be beat. But creating the discs can be time-consuming if you’re using a drive burning one at a time. Primera’s solution is its Bravo XRn Network Disc Publisher.

Essentially an embedded computer running Windows XP, the Bravo XRn sits on a Gigabit Ethernet network, available to connected workstations. Those systems send print jobs to the Bravo using bundled XP or Vista software. One Bravo XRn holds up to 50 discs across two spindles. When a particular project requires nothing but DVDs, load the Publisher up with DVD media. But when some of the workstations are printing CDs and the others DVDs, your customer can use the separate spindles to offer both types of blank discs.