Dell announces new business desktops, services

Dell has updated its Optiplex line of business systems with for new machines, which it says will reduce acquisition and management costs.

Dell is promising a 36-month product life-cycle with the new machine, and also promotes its green credentials with claims of their energy efficiency and suitableness for recycling through use of specific plastics and packaging.

"According to Gartner, a locked and well-managed system can be 42 per cent less expensive to maintain than an unmanaged one," said Darrel Ward, director of Dell Product Group. "With today's product announcement, we are introducing end-to-end solutions that are more manageable and secure, while also giving customers the flexibility to deploy solutions outside of traditional computing models."

The Optiplex 960 is the flagship machine, which the company claims uses 43 per cent less energy over previous generation systems. An optional QuietKit reduces noise by up to a claimed 60 per cent. Pricing for the system starts at 479.

Other systems include the mainstream Optiplex 760, which starts at 359, and the entry-level Optiplex 360, which starts at 279.

Finally, the Optiplex FX160 is designed to support embedded and streamed operating systems for virtual desktop implementations, and starts at 241.

In conjunction with the new systems, Dell said it was also expanding its Flexible Computing Solutions (FCS).

The first of these is On-Demand Desktop Streaming, where data is hosted on a partitioned server in the datacentre but processing is done by a local client, optimising performance. Dell said this service is available worldwide.

Virtual Remote Desktop, where processing happens in the datacentre but the hosted virtual client desktops can be accessed from a variety of devices and locations, is available only in the US.

Lastly, Dedicated Remote Workstation is a PC-over-IP solution that connects to a Dell Precision R5400 rack-mount workstation in a datacentre for high-performance users in harsh or highly secure environments.

Dell also announced new Remote Management and Personalisation services. More information can be found at www.dell.com/seriousbusiness, though this site requires visitors enter their name and an email address to view.