BOSaNOVA Brings OpenOffice 2.0 to Linux-Based Thin Clients

Updated and Corrected: May 9, 2006

by Alex Woodie

BOSaNOVA has seen the open-source light, and likes what it sees--even if it's not free in all respects. Last week, the Arizona-based distributor of thin client computers announced it is including OpenOffice's version 2.0 suite of productivity tools with new purchases of its Linux-based LTC-1000 thin client.

BOSaNOVA's LTC-1000, like all thin clients, is a no-frills, low-cost computer designed to provide end users with an affordable and secure platform for accessing host-based applications, most often running on the iSeries or IBM mainframe servers, although it also supports connections to Citrix servers for accessing Windows hosts. For a few hundred dollars, customers get a 1GHz Via processor, up to 1GB of RAM and 4GB of storage, USB ports, and several PCI and PCMCIA slots for expandability.

On the software side, the LTC-1000 is mostly open source, and free where it can't be open source. It includes Mozilla's free duo, the FireFox Web browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client, and an embedded terminal emulator from Ericom (although Ericom is only used for non-iSeries environments, as BOSaNOVA provides its own 5250 emulator). The emulators in the LTC-1000 can support up to eight sessions simultaneously.

Since it launched in 2004, the LTC-1000 has included the Java-based OpenOffice suite of productivity tools, which consisted of a word processor (called Writer), a spreadsheet (Calc), a drawing tool (Draw), a mathematical function creator (Math), and a multi-media presentation creator (Impress). Now, BOSaNOVA is pre-loading onto its LTC-1000 OpenOffice 2.0, which debuted in October.

With version 2.0, the OpenOffice suite gains a new database manipulation tool called Base. Base allows users to create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, either using a user's existing database, or its built-in HSQL database engine. The new version also brings support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF), an XML-based file spec that will provide an alternative to Microsoft's OpenXML file specification, which will be used in its forthcoming Windows Vista OS.

While OpenOffice requires a bit more memory to work well on BOSaNOVA's Linux-based thin clients, it's well worth it, says Martin Pladgeman, president of Phoenix-based BOSaNOVA. "For years we have preached the merits of Linux and invested heavily in the development of our enterprise class user-interface," he says. "Although OpenOffice is 'free,' there's no such thing as a free lunch, and to-date we charged a nominal fee for the additional storage and RAM for it to function efficiently. The release of OpenOffice 2.0 is a quantum leap forward in functionality so we are very excited to extend this offer."

That offer Pladgeman spoke of refers to the free memory upgrade that BOSaNOVA is providing to customers who order the version of the LTC-1000 that includes OpenOffice, which it refers to as model 7102. Customers get an additional 128MB of memory, for a total of 256MB, with this model.

This article has been corrected and updated since it was first published. The LTC-1000 comes with PCI and PCMCIA slots, not SCSI slots. Additional information regarding the emulation and BOSaNOVA's offer of free memory were also added. IT Jungle regrets the error.