Wyse Thin Clients Fend Off Destructive Nimda Virus While Saving Customers Millions of Dollars

Thin-Client Market Leader Shares Embedded OS Expertise Through Participation In Microsoft's Rapid Development Program

San Jose, CA – 24/09/2001 - Wyse® Technology, the worldwide leader in thin-client computing, today announced that its Winterm™ line of thin-client desktops are immune to the Nimda worm and have been protecting businesses from this recent malicious virus attack. As companies and organizations reel from the millions of dollars worth of damage and lost productivity worldwide caused by Nimda, businesses that have been using Wyse Winterm thin clients have not had to cope with infected desktop devices. Unlike PC's, which have been most vulnerable to Nimda, Wyse Winterm thin clients store and access information from central servers, making then immune to attacks by malicious codes, worms, viruses and trojan horses.

The thin-client environment inherently provides protection from viruses and other aggressive attacks to critical information systems, saving companies millions of dollars. US-based Computer Economics, a leading research firm in the IT industry, recently reported that Nimda caused estimated damages of $370 million worldwide, which includes costs from lost productivity, the need to upgrade or replace damaged systems and IT consulting costs. In a thin- client environment, viruses never touch the desktop device, enabling IT managers to focus on protecting a few servers rather than thousands of desktops.

Wyse Resellers Help Customers Fight Viruses

The adoption of thin clients by enterprises will continue to increase with the growing number of attacks and infections upon personal computers. Wyse Winterm thin clients are a simpler and easier way to deliver the productivity and application flexibility of a personal computer (PC) without the "PC downside" of high service costs, low reliability, and short product life. Resellers such as Vector ESP, a Wyse gold authorized reseller in Benicia, Calif., recognize the security and reliability of thin-client computing.

"Nimda hasn't affected our thin-client based customers," said Sean Thomas, solutions analyst of Vector ESP, "Because Wyse thin clients are connected to servers with security software specifically setup to not allow viruses such as Nimda to execute, the end the end user is never affected."

About the Nimda Worm

W32/Nimda@MM is a destructive mass-mailing (@mm) worm that sends copies of itself to all the e-mail addresses in the infected users' address books. In addition, Nimda probes HTTP Port 80, including those on unpatched IIS servers. The worm itself is a compiled executable with varying file names. The worm spreads by emailing itself as an attachment, scanning for and then infecting vulnerable Web servers running Microsoft's IIS software. Much of the worm's virulence is due to its automated spread.

"Today's economic challenges and security concerns are causing companies to take a hard look at their computer systems," said George Skaff, vice president of worldwide marketing for Wyse Technology. "Many companies are turning to Wyse because of our continuous commitment to providing secure solutions."

About Wyse Technology

Wyse Technology is the global leader in thin computing-based virtualization software and hardware solutions. Wyse and its strategic partners, including, Citrix®, IBM®, Microsoft®, Novell®, VMware®, and others deliver the innovative hardware, infrastructure software, and services that formulate the benefits of cloud computing, virtualization and Green IT. These thin computing solutions allow consumers, public and private enterprises to access the application information they need, but with better security, manageability, and at a much lower total cost of ownership than a PC. Wyse is headquartered in San Jose, California, with offices worldwide.

For more information, visit the Wyse website at http://www.wyse.co.uk or call 0845 604 0038 (UK only) or +44 (0) 118 934 2200

All brands and names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective holders.

For further information contact:

David Angwin
Director of Marketing - EMEA

dangwin@wyse.com

+ 44 (0)118 982 8306