Rose claims to solve thorny remote PC problem

A MEANS of remotely controlling PCs servers over any available IP link has been perfected by Rose Electronics - at least that's what the company claims.

Rose maintains that it is the world's second largest supplier of KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) switches. A KVM switch lets a network manager to manage 40 servers, for example, using a single screen/mouse/keyboard combination.

If such a capability was extended to the IP world, then it would be feasible to re-start a crashed server from any Windows based Internet terminal. Such a capability has been promised many times before but Rose reckons it is the first to come up with a viable product.

The trick, with its Ultralink product, is to get all the elements of a GUI to work together regardless of the IP connection's speed.

So, although it might seem to take ages to move the cursor across the screen, when you click with the mouse it really does open the icon you wish to click on.

Other solutions result in fast keyboard and mouse input which don't match the currently displayed image. Rose's Paul Naish, European marketeer, admitted that the product didn't offer Fort Knox style security against hacking but predicted that customers would add their own measures such as VPNs or restricting access to known IP addressed.

Bizarrely, the most useful feature - the abiity to power down, then power up a PC/server again won't be available until release 2 of Ultralink. The product can control a variety of devices including network hubs or outers besides being able to control computers regardless of their operating system. µ