Your Future Office PC May Be A Clip-On

This is going to be one of those things where you’ll probably think, "Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?"

Before I get into what this is, the primary reason wireless technologies are frowned upon in corporate offices is security. While it’s true just about any corporation could save tens of thousands of dollars a year by having all the employee PCs wirelessly, doing so would create a potentially disastrous liability even with the tightest security. Being that’s the case, wi-fi is simply a no-go in most offices.

Are employees in offices around the world going to be subject to the big, bulky desktop forever. No. Newer form factor technologies are being introduced, one of them being the clip-on PC.

"Clip to where?", you may ask.

The back of the monitor, of course.

Yes, it’s a mini-ITX setup, meaning it’s a bit on the slow side – but – more than adequate for regular office tasks. Departments like Sales, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and HR would have no problems using these.

The cool part is that this is not a future design. It’s available right now, and it’s called the M350 Universal Mini-ITX Enclosure. Relatively cheap and easy to work on as the whole case opens up allowing easy access to everything.

Would this be good for use as a home PC?

I’m leaning towards no, because laptops are far superior in speed and capability compared to the little mini-ITX box. However, it’s definitely true that it’s better than an all-in-one PC given the whole box is 100% accessible. Disconnect cables, unclip the box and it’s super-easy to take to a bench to add/replace components.

I honestly believe the clip-on PC is what we’ll be using in corporate offices in the future. Ask any network admin about wi-fi and you’ll always get back a stolid no, but ask whether he’d think having these little boxes on the back of monitors is a good idea and he or she would instantly agree it’s sound. The boxes are easier to work on, a ton of money on shipping costs are saved and all boxes can be made ‘vanilla’ easily, which will warm even the coldest heart of an IT admin.

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jdeb
You can buy full powered mini itx boards that will blow away laptops in term of performance. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131709

Rich
Definitely a good board, but adds too much cost in corporate environment. That board + Windows license + enclosure = too much cost on a per-unit basis. You can get slim-line Dell boxes for less than half the price so the ends don’t justify the means there.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UGLBUQOEMFXQGQYPVQTVHDDH74 Aaron
I see these small form factor boxes in most of the hospitals I visit while on the job. They are the physical representation of EPIC (electronic billing/records) that hospital staff can use. There is at least one in everyone medroom…
They are great to mount behind a display panel in places where space is at a premium.
Oddly, I would guess that maybe 80% of them work, minus the ones that will not power on, are frozen up, or BSOD.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UGLBUQOEMFXQGQYPVQTVHDDH74 Aaron
I see these small form factor boxes in most of the hospitals I visit while on the job. They are the physical representation of EPIC (electronic billing/records) that hospital staff can use. There is at least one in everyone medroom…
They are great to mount behind a display panel in places where space is at a premium.
Oddly, I would guess that maybe 80% of them work, minus the ones that will not power on, are frozen up, or BSOD.

Rich
It’s not odd if the primary storage medium is SSD and not HDD. No matter what the OS is, SSD has wonky operation, especially when connected to a corporate LAN. There will be instances you have to reboot the stupid thing several times just to get it to ‘think’ right. Once running it’s OK until it wonks out again.

David M
In a large office, aren’t most monitors just a dumb terminal connected to a server? And isn’t this cheaper? I don’t know, thought I would ask.

Rich
That’s actually a fairly loaded question; I’ll try to answer it short:
In the old days it was terminal/mainframe because standalone desktop PCs cost too much. In modern times it’s client/server because desktop PCs dropped down enough in price where it was more affordable.
At present, most companies use client/server so no, desktop PCs are not technically dumb terminals because they can compute on their own. However there are some environments (such as a manufacturing plant floor) where the entire OS and environment is loaded over-the-network in a cloud-style modern version of the old terminal/mainframe setup. There’s also hybrid style where you have on-demand apps over the network such as through Citrix server farming.
The absolute cheapest way to do corporate computing is to have everything (as in all apps) done through the web browser, but unfortunately migration costs are too high to do that for most companies presently. That, and mobile sales force has a not-so-easy time accessing it when outside the office at client locations.
Client/server is still going to be around for a good long while. For now it’s the most cost-effective way for companies to have employees perform tasks on the desktop.

Anonymous
In my small medical office– I’ve stopped building big case workstations (Unless, of course, I’m replacing my OWN!) And the Soho office Servers with Quadcore CPU’s are now powerful enough to support the SOHO office use of Remote Desktop and Thinclients. And I find the Thinclients to be very cost effective for people who do very limited stuff like appointments and letter writing.
For the few office positions that use power functions I’ve gone the Shuttle route. Their latest XS35 with an atom processor is almost as small as a thinclient and can be just as mountable on the back of a monitor. The workers complained– but mostly about the fact that streaming video from a media-rich website like MSNBC is liking watching molasses flow. But, as the One Person IT Dept, that’s Not My Problem.
I’ve always told people that unless they were working for a Graphics co or something Hi-Tech, it did not matter how big the case was, or how many cores were in the CPU, opening and updating the monthly Expense Sheet Excel file uses hardly ANY of the Video/CPU/Multicore/Memory Speed power of the Desktop Machines people say they need.