REDWOOD CITY, CALIF., April 29, 2009 – Facing mounting budget pressures and funding shortfalls, school districts around the country are embracing NComputing virtual desktops to slash computing costs and improve computer-to-student ratios. The NComputing virtual desktops allow multiple students to share a single PC for as little as $70 per seat. And now, seven of the nation’s 10 largest districts have joined more than 1,500 other school districts in implementing NComputing in their schools. This rapid growth means that by the end of the year, NComputing’s U.S. education market share will double and four million students will be using the company’s ultra low-cost virtual desktops.

In New York City, the nation’s largest school district with more than 1,400 schools, the Department of Education recently added NComputing to its short list of approved student-computing solutions. NComputing joins Dell and Apple as one of only three desktop options authorized under the FAMIS contract that governs purchasing by all of the district’s schools. In addition to New York City, schools in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Hillsborough County, Fla., Hawaii, and Philadelphia have installed NComputing systems.

“Our funding is so tight right now that I had to find other ways to keep our technology programs growing to meet student requirements. NComputing was it. We could afford to add computing seats for the kids by spending even less money than our budget allowed,” said Henry Rubio, Principal of A. Philip Randolph Campus High School in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. “NComputing will help us down the road too. Even if we get stimulus money, that’s a one-shot deal. What do we do in three years? We’ll have a pile of obsolete computers. With NComputing, we just have to replace one computer every few years for each 11 stations. That’s the sort of long-term sustainability we need.”

The NComputing solution is based on a simple fact: today’s PCs are so powerful that the vast majority of applications use only a small fraction of the computer’s capacity. NComputing vSpace virtualization software taps the unused capacity in a PC and shares it among multiple users as if each person had their own computer. Each person enjoys a full PC experience by connecting their own monitor, keyboard and mouse to an NComputing access device, which is then connected to the shared PC. The access devices snap into place in seconds, are almost impossible to break, and save on maintenance costs because only the shared PC requires ongoing service or upgrade. The devices use just 1 watt of electricity which also reduces the need for air conditioning and qualifies many schools for substantial energy-efficiency rebates.

“It’s hard to say no to $70 computing that also slashes maintenance and electricity costs,” said Stephen Dukker, CEO and Chairman of NComputing. “Our early adopters were small and mid-size school districts and now the momentum is building in larger districts as well.”

With the economic downturn sharply curtailing school technology budgets, administrators are looking to upgrade and expand computing access on a shoestring. And while federal stimulus money is expected to bring some budgetary relief, IT professionals are keen on spending one-time funds on sustainable computing projects. “The NComputing solution is sustainable because when you upgrade the PCs in a few years you only have to upgrade one PC for each group of 11 stations. The NComputing devices stay right where they are and plug into the new PC. And when the schools subscribe to software through cloud-computing models, NComputing will remain the best-performing and most cost-competitive client,” said Mr. Dukker.

NComputing continues to invest heavily in escalating the performance and cost-effectiveness of its solution. In 2006, the popular X300 kit supported seven users on an entry-level PC. A few months ago, NComputing introduced the X550 kit, which enables 11 students to share a single PC – a 57% improvement in just two years. And as faster multi-core processors become available on mainstream PCs, even higher ratios will be supported. For example, NComputing’s L-series already enables up to 30 users to share a mid-range PC.  Les Barnett, Educational Technology Coordinator with the Dougherty County School System, which adopted the L-series last winter, said, “NComputing has completely changed the game. We have made more workstations available to our students and improved their user experience, while lowering our costs and cutting our energy use. We are committed to the NComputing solution, and will eventually equip all of our labs and classrooms this way.” Whe DoughertyCounty completes its expansion plan, it will have installed 10,000 NComputing seats.

The world leader in virtual desktop computing, NComputing’s ultra low-cost computing solution is used by more than 40,000 organizations in 140 countries. In addition to the United States, NComputing has been selected for major educational deployments in Africa, India, Europe, and Latin America. Its ease-of-use and low-maintenance operation contributed to the record-fast completion of one of the largest educational computing installations ever: the state of Andhra Pradesh in India deployed 50,000 seats in just four months.

About NComputing, Inc.

NComputing, Inc. was founded with the goal of making desktop computing affordable for everyone. The company's award-winning patented technology lowers desktop computing costs, improves manageability, and reduces both energy consumption and e-waste. For more information, visit http://www.ncomputing.com.

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