Teradici debuts PC-over-IP technology called TERA

NEW YORK -- Semiconductor start-up Teradici Wednesday announced the TERA Portal Processor that exerts control over applications and their availability on corporate PCs by directly streaming them from the TERA portal software located in a corporate data center.

The Teradici product, called the TERA Host and Portal Chipset, is intended for use in enterprises where IT managers want to exert strong controls over sensitive data on PCs by controlling application availability through a central server or storage facility. Teradici calls this novel method “PC-over-IP technology,” says Dan Cordingley, co-founder and CEO at Teradici. He says the TERA portal, which can run on server blade and storage subsystems, uses a compression algorithm for sending encrypted streams of applications to any PC using the small TERA portal processor.

“There’s no local processing done and no local storage done,” says Cordingley. “The central site dictates when you can download anything.”

Teradici unveiled the TERA product at this week’s Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association Conference in New York because “financial markets have sensitive data and disaster-recovery requirements,” said Cordingley.

IBM said it’s supporting the Teradici technology in its BladeCenter products, and Verari Systems said the TERA portal works as a blade form factor in data centers using Verari’s storage subsystem.

Cordingley said Teradici’s “PC-over-IP” technology allows data managers to serve up PC-based applications from a central source, potentially an advantage in managing large networks of tens of thousands of PCs.

“It could be helpful in disaster recovery, too,” said Cordingley. Prices for TERA are about $300 to $400 per PC.

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Teradici was founded two years ago and has received venture capital funding from Alloy Ventures and Skypoint Capital. It has 55 employees.