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Mr. Del Russo and Mr. Romm are advocates of and innovators in stateless computing where no operating system or any other valuable information or data is stored onthe desktop  for businesses, government, schools and other distributed computingenvironments.  ItÂ's the 21st century iteration of how corporate computing startedsome three and a half decades ago, with mainframes attached to terminals, andeveryoneÂ's information was centrally stored and managed, Mr. Del Russo said.
 Using diskless and stateless thin clients and SymbioÂ's proprietary boot appliancethat boots and links them to the server, we've created server-centric computing thatworks at the speed of todayÂ's lightening-fast servers, Mr. Romm added.  And thedata is secure  really safe  because users perform all work on the securedservers. Their data that appears on their monitor never leaves the server.Â
 ItÂ's a very simple and basic premise, said Mr. Del Russo.  By using stateless anddiskless thin clients, the operating system, applications and all data remain on theserver. It makes sense that just one computer -- the server -- can be secured moreeffectively and efficiently than hundreds of individual PCs.Â
The Most Data-Secure Desktop Available
 By eliminating data on the desktop, and by developing desktop terminals that makeit very, very difficult for users to copy files to CDs or other removable devices,Symbio has created a system that provides the most data-secure desktop currentlyavailable, said Mr. Romm.  And by promoting centralization and consolidation ofdata from many individual units to a few, highly secured units, Symbio fosters theuse of the industry-standard remote access techniques provided by Windows TerminalServices, No Machine, and others.Â
 If you need to work at home, Mr. Del Russo said,  use your desktop or laptop, butfor security's sake, leave your data in the office. By accessing the server fromhome through a secure virtual private network (VPN), users have full access to allinformation, just as if they were sitting at your securely linked desktops. ItÂ's awin-win situation, with files safe and secure on the office server.Â
SymbioÂ's co-founders warn that computer users should not forget  the data-lossfiasco when an employee of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs took home alaptop containing the names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth of more than26 million veterans and their spouses. The laptop was stolen, and with it, a harddrive full of unencrypted data.
 If the VA were a Symbio customer, said Mr. Romm,  its data would have beencentrally stored and secured on servers, and the employee could have been grantedaccess to the data through a secure VPN. He would have used his laptop just like hewould have used his diskless thin client at work. Data would not have been placed atrisk on a mobile platform.Â
 Unfortunately, Mr. Del Russo said,  the VA is not alone in risking and losingdata. A recent study by the Ponemon Institute for Scott and Scott, an internationallaw and technology services firm based in Dallas, showed that 85% of organizationssurveyed had experienced a data-breach event, with nearly half the reported datathefts attributed to lost or stolen laptops, PDAs and/or USB memory sticks.Â
An International Problem . . . An International Solution
Peter Tierney, managing director of World Technology Corporation, a leader in theexport management and international business development, knows  first-hand thatsecurity is an international problem and  believes Symbio has developed aninternational solution. His company, based in New York City with offices worldwide,works with Symbio and other U.S. and European hi-tech companies to build and managetheir international distribution networks.
 The ability and wherewithal to protect personal data in the workplace is becoming ahot topic in our Asian markets, and the Symbio solution is being viewed as aninnovative and very cost-effective alternative, he said.  In Japan, for example, asof April 2005, businesses with 5,000 or more employees, including foreign companies,must comply with the  Japan Personal Information Protection Law,Â' which set newrules for handling personal data. Just three weeks after its implementation, thepolice in Yomiuri arrested a temporary employee who formerly worked for NTT DoCoMoInc. over a leak of clients' personal data. The suspect was arrested on suspicion ofobstructing business by force, with the police alleging that he took data containingthe personal information of some 24,600 clients out of the company.Â
Mr. Tierney said South Korea has also enacted legislation to protect personal data-- the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization andData Protection. Â Now, with the Symbiont Thin Client Solution, we have a productthat complies with these laws right out of the box that we can offer to resellers inKorea, Japan, Singapore, Australia, and throughout Asia.Â
 An Important Safeguarding StepÂ'
Symbio Technologies is quick to point out that its stateless, thin client solutionis not a panacea for data security,  but it is an important safeguarding step, saidMr. Romm, reminding corporate users that  there are many ways for data to be lost orstolen.
 What Symbio is doing, he said,  is giving  indeed returning -- total control ofdata and user access back to the network administrator, which provides an addedlayer of security for businesses, government agencies and others who work in adistributed computing environment.Â
The desktop solution created by and now available from Symbio Technology promotesthe consolidation of all operating systems, applications, and data to a few highlysecured servers. And, by the very nature of server-centric computing, the Symbiosolution provides secure access to those individual workers who are permitted towork from remote locations.
 Symbio Technologies promotes the elimination of data on the desktop, said Mr. DelRusso.  In today's world of Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA regulations, it is comfortingto know that there is no data on the desktop that can be lost or stolen. We believewe have created the nucleus of what could well be at the core of everyone's nextgeneration network.Â
About Symbio Technologies
Symbio Technologies is the leader in server-centric stateless computing. Symbiodesigns and manufactures hardware, software and services that enable businesses toreduce the time, complexity, and costs associated with deploying and maintainingcomputer networks. Symbio's flagship thin client solution consists of a networkappliance called The Symbiont Boot Appliance, stateless desktop terminals disk-lessthin clients, and value-add subscription services. Its solutions connect users to avariety of environments that utilize the most popular protocols and systems in theindustry, including Microsoft Windows Terminal Services RDP, Citrix ICA, Linux/UnixX, NX Server NX, TN5250/AS400, IBM3270, and virtually any mainframe protocol. Symbiomarkets its products worldwide through a growing network of distributors, resellers,value added resellers and integrators in Australia, Canada, Chile, Israel, Mexico,Pakistan, South Africa, and the U.K. as well as throughout the U.S.
