FYRoM's minister of technology signed a contract with a Silicon Valley start-up,
NComputing Inc. This contract was made for equipping the schools in FYROM with new computers. The whole deal is worth $61 million. FYRoM stands for Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
NComputing's technology enables organizations to
take a single computer and divide their computing power out to
"thin clients" used by multiple persons. The only thing a thin client user has to do is plug a keyboard, mouse and monitor into a small box that maintains the connection to a server or hub computer. In the future, wireless links are expected to be made.
The software in these boxes creates individual computing sessions for every user, with different programs and different looks, but all of them share the same central processor and hard disk in the server.
A PC can be split in ten ways by NComputing's boxes, depending on the configuration, and one server can be divided in up to 30 different workstations. This is a real advantage, because each workstation will cost just $150-$175, in this price being included installation, technical support and the necessary hardware.
The well-known One Laptop Per Child from MIT will cost around $190, but it doesn't include service costs, which could make it more expensive than NComputing's solution. Ivo Ivanovski, FYRoM's minister of information society, expects this initiative to give all K-12 students the possibility of using computers at school in the future. Consequently, 20,000 new PCs from Haier Co. and 160,000 PC-sharing boxes from NComputing will be installed.
Ivanovski decided to run Linux and open-source office software (instead of using Microsoft Windows) to reduce furthermore the costs of the project. He stated:
"It's better if you have unlimited resources of the government. We as a developing, poor country don't have that kind of money. We're thinking of buying once and then not doing anything."
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