Acute Technologies Inc launched its new family of Lite PCs at PC Expo this week, claiming a broader product line than any of its competitors. The ThinCast family includes what the Milpitas, California-based company claims is the first thin client terminals integrated into high-end 15, 17, 19 and 21 inch CRT monitors, or 12 and 15-inch flat-panel displays.
The product family consists of the 1000, 5000, 7000 and 8000 series, which all include smart card and PCMCIA slots, from 8Mb to 144Mb of flash memory, and from 16Mb to 128Mb of SDRAM and VGA RAM. They run Windows CE, Linux or selected other operating systems, and support multiple terminal emulator software options. NT, Windows and DOS applications can be run using Citrix Systems Inc’s MetaFrame and WinFrame software in conjunction with Microsoft Corp’s NT Terminal Server Edition running on the server. Prices begin at $299.
Twelve year-old Acute is best known for its electronics manufacturing of printed circuit boards and system packaging, but also sells a range of AcuteScan monitors, mostly to the government market. It has a 140,000 square foot manufacturing and headquarters facility in Silicon Valley, capable of shipping 2m printed circuit board units annually. The thin client division was formed at the beginning of this month.
