Neoware, Inc, a leading provider of thin client computing solutions, today announced that it has joined the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). Neoware will lend its expertise in thin client virtualization to help VESA's Net2Display(tm) task group drive the evolution of thin client computing. Net2Display is an initiative designed to develop and promote a new, improved standard for enabling remote displays to connect with centrally located host computers over wired and wireless networks in home, enterprise and mobile environments.

For users, this means that although they may be working in and exploiting a full, modern and rich PC-style computing environment, everything they interact with -- the applications, the operating system and many other components -- are actually being delivered from a remote server. At its heart, Net2Display is a standard that allows a server to send display data over a high speed data channel, regardless of what channel (e.g., Ethernet, IEEE 1394, USB, etc.) is being used.

For Neoware, joining this project is another step in driving the adoption of personal computer virtualization and the evolution of thin client computing. The more thin clients can replicate the speed, robust performance and responsiveness of traditional PCs, the more widely accessible they become as an option. Thin clients already outperform traditional PCs in terms of data security, ease of management and total cost of ownership.

"Joining VESA and supporting its Net2Display initiative illustrates Neoware's dedication to leading the next generation of thin clients and access computing," said Klaus Besier, president and CEO of Neoware. "Growing use of multimedia elements and the increasing interest in thin clients as an alternative to traditional PC-based computing means that the time is right for an open standard that enables everyone to optimize their computing experience. Neoware views Net2Display as an important project, and fully supports its objectives."

As modern operating systems deliver richer user environments, and more and more applications exploit the potential of full motion video, current methods for remote displays are not keeping pace. In addition, today's virtual network computing models do not perform as they should in WAN settings. Net2Display is a response to these perceived limitations of conventional remote display approaches, as well as to the growing diversity of competing products and services.

Beyond enriching the remote display computing experience and mitigating the shortcoming of existing approaches, Net2Display also aims to provide enhanced performance at a lower cost; something it hopes to achieve through standardization. The VESA task group assigned to the Net2Display project has set itself the goal of developing a new remoting protocol that minimizes the complexity of the end-user device, fully supports long distance data communication and modern and emerging motion video requirements, and delivers faster response times.