Nortel Buzzboard

There is no doubt that laptops have revolutionized business.  Their performance and low price mean that almost any business can afford to give their mobile employees a way to stay better connected when traveling.

There are times, however, when even a laptop it too bulky, when you don’t have your laptop but unexpectedly need to connect, or when laptops are shared among a group of users.

Nortel today announced Secure Portable Office (SPO), a new solution that allows mobile workes to securely access their corporate networks using a specially formatted USB key that you can use with any Windows PC.  In other words, an office-on-a-stick.  You can see the press release here, and vnunet.com has a great article about the solution here.

When inserted into a standard USB port, this USB key (see picture above right) user identity is authenticated (name and password), then the key works with a Nortel VPN Gateway to automate secure access of the corporate network. Then a Virtual Desktop is launched with a menu of authorized network applications.

Security is top priority with the solution.  All data and applications are encrypted, both in transit and on the PC. An automatic scan for viruses and out-of-date or malicious software can be configured into the login process.

When the USB key is removed, the PC is wiped clean of all data and applications, leaving no trace on the PC being used.  This is critical for certain industries such as healthcare that have stringent requirements for protecting sensitive information.

Speaking of healthcare, midwives from Liverpool Women’s Hospital, a hospital specializing in care for women and babies, will use SPO to access server-based medical records directly from patient’s homes.  You can read more about their implimentation and the benefits in this article on silicon.com.