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Jetway PT800TWIN - Dual User Hardware

Posted by timothy on from the for-both-of-me dept.

Steve K writes "Cost-cutting in IT. Something the beancounters are always looking at, no doubt. Jetway have attempted to provide an answer -- allow two users to utilise one machine at once. HEXUS.net have a review: 'The PT800TWIN is an odd beast. While it's admirable that Jetway have engineered it with MagicTwin support in mind, to go after the low-cost/budget/TCO crowd, you have to wonder about the implementation. It needs Windows XP, adding cost. A large proportion of applications released on Windows require you to have two licenses to run concurrently on a MagicTwin system, adding cost. While you save money on the hardware, you don't on the software.' Not really a revolutionary product, but perhaps it can be taken somewhere with a little more work."

4 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. A Novel Concept but… by Izago909 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Considering the market that they are targeting, the single largest expense is not the hardware but the software. A full version of XP Pro costs $300 and a full copy of Office 2003 costs $400. Sure, you can get volume discounts, possibly even upgrades, but considering most OEM's offer low end office PC's for the same price as a full version of 2003, you can see how the hardware isn't the biggest concern if you are aiming at the business value market. An effective API layer for Linux that supports the most common business apps could pull in more money. Also, before anyone brings it up, Crossover Office needs a bit more work and a stronger reputation before it would be considered as a common business solution.

  2. What the heck? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why not just buy a damn server and attach dumbterminals then?

    All this thing is really is a scaled down version of time sharing systems that have been around since the 1950's.

    Oh well, I guess the more things change the more they stay the same.

  3. Two users? One machine at once? by Apreche · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Um. You know, if you get a computer with two video cards, two keyboards, two mice and two monitors you can do with with X rather easily. Heck, if you don't mind the performance hit you can technically get a whole bunch of terminals hooked up to one machine like this. You're really not saving that much money though. Commodity PC hardware is so cheap these days that is just doesn't matter that much.

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  4. Why? by FiReaNGeL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why choose to buy one very performing desktop to split his performance in half, instead of buying 2 cheap desktops? Performing hardware is always more costly than twice its underperforming counterpart...

    Also, twice the applications running, twice the opportunity to crash...?

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