A new device is on the market that may one day eliminate the need for employees of a company to each have a computer at their desk. This could also be used in schools where the ratio of computers to students is often cited as a selling point for the school. The theory behind this device is one that has been tried before.

All of the files, programs, etc that are accessed during the course of the user’s session reside on a server. The device itself connects to the network, a monitor, keyboard, and any other peripherals that the user may have. The device does not have any disk space of it’s own.

Previous attempts at this type of setup have had very limited success, but the creators of the Pano may have some advantages. For one thing, bandwidth has increased since the last time something like this was marketed and networks are much faster than they were at that time. This will help to improve any performance of data traveling back and forth through the network.

Another difference between the Pano and previous devices is that the previous versions worked on the concept of multiple users using the same operating system at the same time on the same server and the Pano uses virtualization to get this effect. Besides server load, a benefit of this setup is that it is much less likely for any malicious activity to be able to affect the server itself and if a user does get a virus or some equivalent, it will be quite easy to repair the damages.

For more information, there is a PC Magazine Article and also a Post at The Register that you may find interesting.