Novell moves to slash mobile desktop TCO

Companies can cut the total cost of ownership of mobile desktops by up to 60 per cent, by using the latest version of ZENworks, according to Novell.

At its Brainshare conference in Salt Lake City the company unveiled its ZENworks Synergy package, which creates a secure, personalised desktop for users whether they are at their desk or in a web cafe, or disconnected from the network.

Synergy is a bundle of existing Novell products, made up of ZENworks for Desktops 3.2, ZENworks OnDemand Services 2 and Novell Portal Services 1.5. It is due to ship in early May at $159 per user licence.

Using ZENworks Synergy and Novell's eDirectory, companies can give users access to content and corporate applications from one central place.

It allows administrators to deliver applications from client-server, thin-client and the web from a single point, which Novell said will give users consistent access to applications from any device in any location via a web browser or directly from their Windows desktop.

Because ZENworks Synergy lets administrators oversee and manage these different computing environments from a single point, rather than managing them separately, Novell claims that the product can cut the total cost of ownership of mobile and fixed Windows desktops by up to 60 per cent.

Novell said ZENworks Synergy can also track the use of all digital assets to give a better idea of usage and allow for billing.