TechWatch: VMWare ACE; LG Monitors; The XC Cube

This month's crop proves that stellar products often come in sleek (or small) packages. Got any downsized diamonds of your own? Send them to [email protected].

Disruption-free environment

With IT infrastructures turning into sprawling conglomerations of desktops, laptops and mobile users, it would sure be nice for solution providers to have a tool to add new users without fear of disruptions. With VMware ACE (which stands for assured computing environment), now they can do just that. The product allows system administrators to create a customized, secure and standardized environment and deploy it to any PC. The admin has complete control of security settings, network settings, system configuration and user-interface capabilities. That, in turn, enables the enforcement of enterprise IT policies so that new machines can't wreak havoc on a network. VMware ACE also supports the increasingly important concept of digital-rights management and prevents users from altering their desktops.

VMware ACE, www.vmware.com Price: $995 (includes four licenses; $99 each additional license)

You can't be too slim

LG Electronics, which is working hard to ratchet up its presence in the channel, has launched the Ultra Slim line of flat-panel displays. Available in 17-inch and 19-inch models--the Flatron L1780U and L1980U, respectively--the LCDs can be folded to only 66 mm in height and rotated on a double-hinged arm. The L1980U also can shift a full 90 degrees to go from portrait to landscape views and back again. Both models boast resolutions of 1,280-x-1,024 and fast, 12-ms response times. While their performance is certainly excellent, we were particularly impressed with the units' industrial design, which definitely stands out from the pack.

FLATRON L1780u, L1980U, us.lge.com Price: $795 (17-inch L1780U is $695)

Sexy compact cube

Computer-component vendor AOpen has unleashed its latest offering for VARs and white-box builders. The EY 855-II XC Cube is a bare-bones system that packs a Pentium M processor, companion 855 chipset and quiet cooling system into a small form-factor chassis. The result, according to AOpen, is a box that runs at a 40 percent reduction in noise level compared with a standard PC equipped with a Pentium 4 processor. The XC Cube chassis also is fitted with a full range of expansion interfaces, including USB 2.0 ports, IEEE 1394 connectors, PCI slots and an AGP 4X graphics slot. Best of all, unlike so many of the cookie-cutter PC boxes out there, the Cube looks great.

XC CUBE, www.aopen.com Price: $320