Boundless Technologies Inc is no longer at Microsoft Corp’s mercy, having unveiled a prototype thin client which can support a web browser under Linux. The ViewPoint TC, being hawked at this week’s WebIT conference in Boston, runs S.u.S.E. Linux and Netscape Navigator 3.01. It also supports a Unix ICA client, VT320 text terminal emulation, Java and X Windows X11R6 compatibility. Boundless wants to push the x86-based device into the enterprise intranet market as a universal front end. The operating system will be invisible to users, who will interact with applications through a graphical user interface. Until now, Viewpoint TCs had supported Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition and Citrix WinFrame/MetaFrame. This dependence belied the fundamental flexibility of the hardware, which Boundless claims as the only thin client with PCI/ISA expansion slots for RAM and peripherals (CI No 3,469).
