Pulsar introduces secure and mobile PCs

Pulsar Data Systems Inc. will unveil its first name-branded products this week at the E-Gov '98 Show in Washington, D.C., as part of an ongoing effort by the Lanham, Md.-based PC reseller to build its services and integration business.

The products are the first in a series expected from Pulsar's Technology Sciences Division, headed by vice president Kevin Linck. The year-old division has 45 employees and provides integration, services, testing and maintenance work that is a small but growing part of Pulsar's $170 million in annual revenue.

The products that will be shown at E-Gov include a secure PC, a companion networking device and a line of lightweight, ruggedized mobile computers. All these products are available on Pulsar's National Institutes of Health Electronic Computer Store II contract and are being added to the General Services Administration schedule.

"We're going after niche markets where we can offer custom-tailored products to federal, state and local, education and commercial customers,'' Linck said.

Pulsar's TSD Secure PC features an integrated ISA card with a physical switch that allows a single PC to link to classified and unclassified networks without the risk of jeopardizing secure data. The user simply clicks an icon on his screen to switch from one network to the other, and the hard drive is partitioned into two separate areas, of which only one is available at a time. The card, manufactured by Voltaire Advanced Data Security Ltd., Israel, has been submitted to the National Security Agency for certification at the EAL-2 level.

"In the past, if you needed to communicate with two separate environments, you needed two PCs,'' said Erez Diamant, president of Voltaire. "Instead, we've built two separate environments into a single machine.''

Pulsar is the first U.S. company to gain rights to resell Voltaire's 2 in 1 PC card. The card is used by the Israeli military, census department and central banking authority. Pulsar will sell the card, which retails for $395, in its own PCs as well as offer it as an option in other vendors' PCs.

Pulsar also will offer Voltaire's companion 2 in 1 Net, which is a wiring closet product for 2 in 1 PC card users who want to access secure and public networks on a single local-area network. This product allows organizations with large numbers of users to provide access to secure internal networks and the Internet without needing two connections at each PC. Pulsar will sell the companion product for $695. In addition, Pulsar will resell the entire line of ruggedized portables from Phoenix Group Inc., a Hauppauge, N.Y., manufacturer whose products previously were not available on government contracts. The line includes PGI's Super Nightingale, which is a 3.5-pound PC featuring a 133 MHz Intel Corp. Pentium processor, 16M of RAM and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows 95.

The Super Nightingale, which has a sunlight-readable touchscreen, comes in a fully sealed case. It has four PC Card slots, a removable 340M hard drive and two rechargeable batteries. The machine comes with an optional keyboard, a pen input device and an arm or neck strap.

Another version of the Super Nightingale, dubbed The Beast, can be mounted in a vehicle. Super Nightingale retails for $4,995.