Jade Integration, a British firm, will launch the smallest PC named Jack PC. It’s size: a wall socket.

Jack PC is a new concept of a PC, where smaller is the best. They are best described as thin clients.

This is the world’s first Windows-based thin client small enough to fit in a network wall port. The benefits to business are massive since there’s no longer a need for desktop PCs at all - your monitor, keyboard and mouse just plug into the wall.

Jack uses Windows CE and has three ways of communicating. The first one is Citix which allows you to connect to any Citrix server infrastructure. Next, you have the RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) client to connect to any Windows server environment running terminal services. The last one is a common Internet Explorer 6 to browse the net or to use any browser application.

Now let’s see what Jack has inside. It is powered by a AMD Au 1550 RISC processors running at either 333 or 500MHz. That’s the equivalent of a 800MHz or 1.2GHz x86 desktop processor. Next, it comes with 32 or 64MB flash memory to store the operating system (Windows CE .NET 4.2/5) and 64 or 128MB RAM.

With 4MB or 8MB, Jack can support a display resolution from 1280 x 1024 to 1600 x 1200 and maximum colors of 16m 24-bit true color.

It has 4 USB 2.0 compatible ports and analogue or DVI / Analogue (dual screen support) display support.

“This will change everything. We independently test every thin client we deploy and as a result have alliances with a very select range of key manufacturers. Chip PC will take the market by storm with this unit though. The performance is breathtaking - far faster than similar priced terminals which are ten times the size”.

“The terminals consume just 5W of electricity - about 20 times less than a typical desktop PC. When you consider a PC is sitting there using 80-100W of electricity while the CPU is only 1% utilised it’s no wonder so many organisations are looking to make the switch”.

Jack comes in 3 models: EFI-6700 (209₤), EFI-6800 (279₤) and EFI-6900 (349₤). Jack will be displayed at IT Works 2006.