KUALA LUMPUR, MARCH 30 - Even with the rise of Internet, certain aspects of society find it difficult to integrate technology into their lives. Education, is one such field, finding itself limited to factors such as equipment costs, electrical capacity and manpower.

In light of this issue, technology manufacturer Hewlett-Packard has come up with a solution: It intends to introduce school students to using thin clients, instead of the more expensive desktop workstations.

By operating on a single PC, HP's MultiSeat Computing Solution allows for up to 10 different HP MultiSeat t100 Thin Clients to be connected simultaneously. Measuring at a mere 2.8cm thick, the thin clients also come with an accompanying LCD monitor, keyboard and mouse. However, due to security concerns raised by HP, the thin clients do not come with USB ports.

“It's not enough for every child to be educated, but also to learn how to use IT,” Anthony Lim, Business Development Manager from HP SEA, Korea and Taiwan was known to have said at its HP Transformation event on Tuesday.

Adding concrete to his point, Anthony related an instance whereby HP visited schools in certain parts of Indonesia, and witnessed classes consisting of 40 students having to share a single computer between them. According to Anthony, the students had to divide the use of the PC amongst all members of the class. As a result, the shared computers proved to be more of a distraction than a useful tool.

Anthony further explained that while many teachers and school administrators supported the use of computers in the classroom, schools were often held back due to costs, electrical capacity and lack of maintenance capabilities.

“The solution [to let students use computers simultaneously] has existed for a couple of years, but has never been easy to deploy, until now,” Anthony was known to say, just before he revealed the MultiSeat Computing Solution.

Instead of depending on an individual power source, the t100 thin client powers up by being plugged into a single MultiSeat ms6000 PC, and interface via virtualization techniques. According to HP, the t100 clients were known to operate on 2.5 Watts of energy each, and were claimed to have saved schools up to 70 to 80 percent of computing electricity costs.

When asked if HP would be rolling out these solutions for Malaysian schools, Anthony replied by saying that the company was still 'working with the authorities,' and that no definite plan had been put into play just yet.