Hitachi hard-drive-less notebooks?

Hi everyone,

I thought this was sorta interesting, and it pertained to security:

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...HITACHI-DC.XML

I kind of fail to see the security aspect they are showing off here. They say:

Quote:

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The new terminal does not store any data, such as client information, in it, and all tasks are carried out by interacting with server computers or PCs at headquarters, protecting vital business information even when the computer is lost or stolen.

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While I can see how losing or having the notebook stolen can be a security problem, it is just as equally (if not more) dangerous to transmit "vital business information" over the internet. I can't even begin to imagine what this could do in the hands of inept network administrators.

And quite frankly, at $2,476 a pop, this doesn't seem to be helping its case.

Of course, to be fair, the article does omit a lot of technical information, but nonetheless, I'm curious what the AO community thinks about this.

-ik

That sounds like a simple terminal to me... they should charge $300 for that, not $2,500...
The security advantages are there, though. If there's no hard drive in it, there's no information on it - if they get stolen, there's nothing anyone can do with them - except use them as a terminal. Compare that to a laptop with a hard drive that possibly has e-mail logins/passwords, passwords to intranets, and who knows what other vital info on it...

On the other hand: it would have to have all networking functionability and what have you built in (possibly in the BIOS?), so that might explain the steep price...
Who knows... I can't read Japanese...

$300? No way! I can see how that would run $2000-$3000 easily.

Consider:
- Full business notebook computer functionality
- Network capabilities for mobile users (Wifi, ethernet, dialup)
- HUGE processing and volatile storage (since everything runs from a "ram drive")
- No changing data stored to a ROM (i.e. the basic parts of the OS...DLL's, drivers, etc.)
- Security functionality (smartcard, encryption, VPN tunneling technologies)

I think it's a pretty decent idea. But imagine the overhead for supporting users! And managing the systems for upgrades, software changes, etc. I bet the infrastructure and support costs far outweigh the $2500 price point.

Cool...but expensive.