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by Diane Himes, MA Editorial Staff   | Abstract: | From rugged desktops and notebooks for shop-floor use, to embedded systems for industrial control networks, to "wearables" and handhelds for pick, pack, and ship applications, manufacturers have a wide variety of options when evaluating industrial computers. |
From rugged desktops and notebooks for shop-floor use, to embedded systems for industrial control networks, to "wearables" and handhelds for pick, pack, and ship applications, manufacturers have a wide variety of options when evaluating industrial computers. While today's models come in different sizes, shapes, and configurations, they all share important characteristics beyond the ability to withstand the harsh conditions of the manufacturing enterprise. First, they are all designed to process work at accelerated speeds, thanks to more powerful microprocessors, denser disk drives, and an assortment of memory and graphics processing extensions. Second, today's industrial PCs are no longer islands unto themselves; they support a wide array of wired and wireless networking options for connecting the shop floor to back-office systems that run the enterprise. And, perhaps most important in these cost-sensitive times, industrial computers are now equipped with more energy-efficient componentry to reduce power consumption and cooling requirements. Perhaps the biggest news in the personal computing space right now is Microsoft's much-anticipated release of its Vista operating system. Expected to further expand the PC's potency, Vista's two versions for business applications -- Vista Business and Vista Enterprise -- will succeed XP Professional. [Click to continue] |