The GM CIO said he's also interested in exploring other emerging IT approaches, including what is sometimes called a "PC on a stick" -- a USB drive that is loaded with the user's desktop. The drive can recreate that desktop on multiple machines.
The "PC on a stick" technology can "enable my home PC to do everything that I want to do at GM," said Kline. The drive is encrypted, so a misplaced drive would result simply in the loss of a $15 device, he said. "It's something I'm pushing really hard with my technology guys - that's got my eye," he said.
VMware makes a USB tool it calls the Assured Computing Environment, which contains a virtualized machine running an operating system and applications and storing files. Even if it is loaded on a PC infected with a virus, the drive operates in its own protected bubble, said Raj Mallempati, director desktop product marketing at VMware. The downside is that the small USB drives are prone to be lost by their owners, he added.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140394/GM_s_new_CIO_plans_big_de...
Discuss...
It's another take on a virtual desktop. It's standard thin-client stuff. Everything takes place in the cloud so you need a big server farm that can essentially act as the individual PCs for all your users. If you're offline, you have access to nothing. If you're on a slow network, it's not really usable.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Let's trump them ahead of their game by making GoPC Portable.
They'll have to try pretty hard to trump that... (darn, it didn't sound as sarcastic as I wanted it to be).
Chance that this will actually happen
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