Neoware offers this definition of “Information Appliance” — a term that's beginning to receive widespread use . . .

An information appliance is one of a new generation of smart computing products that is designed to be flexible and to perform dedicated tasks extremely well. An information appliance has the speed and power of a personal computer, but is simpler to use, easier to manage, and it costs less.

With an information appliance you can get right to work. There's no need to understand how to use complex operating system commands, no need to load applications, no need to integrate it with the rest of your network. Just plug it in, and in seconds you can be productive.

Information appliances come in a variety of flavors. Information appliances can typically be configured as thin clients, web kiosks, multimedia information stations, cash registers, firewalls, routers, security devices and more. With the right software preloaded — presto — instant whatever.

In addition to running local applications, information appliances can connect to your network and run applications from servers. So you can harness the power of all of your computers to run applications designed for any operating system — Linux, Windows, UNIX, mainframes, Java, and the Internet.

An information appliance is more than just a computer with pre-installed software. It's simpler, easier, and designed with the Internet in mind. You can easily manage hundreds or thousands of information appliances located anywhere on your network.

Reliability is another benefit of an information appliance. Because it typically doesn't have a hard drive, fan, or other moving parts it costs less, is virtually silent, and there's almost nothing to go wrong. This means very high reliability, with uptimes measured in months and years, not days or weeks like general-purpose PCs.

(Reproduced with permission of Neoware Systems, Inc.)

 
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