Cruise Technologies Inc. is a new company that has been in the thin-client market for years.

That apparent contradiction was created when a core group of executives from Zenith Data Systems' Mobile Systems Group formed Cruise Technologies, based in Arlington Heights, in February.

The new company, whose main product is CruiseConnect software, is the latest result of the merger last June that created Packard Bell NEC Inc., Sacramento, Calif.

Although Packard Bell NEC maintains a minority interest, Cruise Technologies will have to rely on its own thin-client expertise to succeed.

Incorporating the basic components from Zenith Data Systems' CruisePad technology, CruiseConnect links wireless mobile thin clients via a wireless LAN to Windows and terminal applications that run wholly on a Pentium or Pentium Pro server. One server can support 60 thin clients connected with CruiseConnect.

The company initially will target the health-care and automotive markets, as well as traditional dumb-terminal applications such as manufacturing, point of sale and inventory.

Cruise Technologies' strategy is to sign up OEM partners that will use CruiseConnect and the company's reference platform for thin clients. The bundled network computers then will sold through the channel.

"We decided to focus on core technology and, for distribution, a number of OEM partners," said Chris Gladwin, chief executive of Cruise Technologies. "We're going to make it very, very easy for a company to come into this [thin-client] business."

Wyse Technology Inc., San Jose, Calif., will include CruiseConnect as part of the system software in its Winterm line of network computers.

"We were looking for a way to get into the wireless market," said Jeff McNaught, Wyse's general manager. But Wyse did not have the know how to create a full-featured wireless device on its own, he said. The Cruise Technologies reference platform loaded with CruiseConnect provided the first step for Wyse.

The Winterm 2930 comes with 2.4GHz radio technology, a lithium-ion battery that goes eight hours between charges, and a backlit color 8.5-inch touchscreen. The product has an estimated street price of less than $3,000.

The 2930 devices can be administered remotely with WyseWorks software. The product, which can be loaded on a server with Citrix Systems Inc.'s WinFrame multiuser product and the future multiuser Windows NT, allows for automatic remote configuration.

A download of updated software takes an average of two minutes per terminal on a 28.8-Kbps modem. That time can be cut to about four seconds per download per terminal using a network connection.

WyseWorks is available next month and lists for $1,195 per site for up to 75 users; a 50-user add-on has a list price of $549.

Future Wyse wireless products will come with a keyboard and a screen with 800 x 600 resolution, and will be designed from the ground up by Wyse-but they will include CruiseConnect, McNaught said.

Other Cruise Technologies partners include Citrix, Proxim Inc. and Zenith Data Systems.

Plans by Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., to incorporate multiuser technology from Citrix, Coral Springs, Fla., should give a boost to the thin-client sector. "If Microsoft puts out a multiuser version of NT, the whole thing will explode," Cruise Technologies' Gladwin said.

To finance future development, Cruise Technologies received a $12 million cash infusion from venture capitalists Battery Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners.

Source: Computer Reseller News