MultiPoint Server: 20 Computers on One

Dean Paron, product unit manager for Windows MultiPoint at Microsoft, presented about MultiPoint Server Sunday at the TechEd Reviewers' workshop.

MultiPoint was RTM'd in February, but this is the first time I'd heard of it. The gist of it is that MultiPoint Server lets you run lots of physical machines—which is to say, sets of monitors, mice, and keyboards—from one server. Paron said it's based on Remote Desktop technology, and he showed off some interesting tricks, such as two machines feeding into a single monitor, both of which run and act like Windows 7.

Paron said the product would work for some office scenarios, such as knowledge workers who don't need to run CPU-hungry applications like CAD. But the main use case he presented was for education, especially in developing countries. Microsoft's figures show that developing countries could deploy computers to students using MultiPoint for about one third the cost of deploying traditional computers.

On top of price, MultiPoint also provides some extras for educational scenarios. A teacher could, for example, limit students to accessing only certain sites, launch applications on a station, or make all stations look at the content from one.

OEMs are already taking orders for MultiPoint and it's available in MSDN and TechNet.