While IGEL introduced a splashy higher-end AMD powered device earlier this year, which has been selling well since its inception, the less expensive UD3 is the bedrock of IGEL’s business, accounting for three-fifths of their sales.
The new IGEL UD3
Thin client and endpoint management software vendor IGEL has announced a refresh of its workhorse IGEL UD3 software-defined thin clients. The new UD3 family is now powered by the second-generation AMD Embedded G-Series system-on-a-chip [SoC], the GX-424.
IGEL strengthened their alliance with AMD earlier this year with their announcement that their higher-end UD6 family, powered by Intel, would be replaced with a new UD7 family, with the AMD Embedded R-Series chip. The existing version of the UD3 was powered by the first generation of the AMD Embedded G-Series, so there is no vendor transition with this model. While the higher-end UD 7 is a much flashier product, and has been selling at three times the pace of IGEL’s total business, the UD-3 sells in much greater volumes.
“The UD3 is super-important for IGEL,” said Simon Clephan, IGEL’s Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Alliances. “I’m very excited about the UD7, but the UD3 is what pays my salary and my mortgage. It generates three-fifths of our business, even through the margin on the UD6 and now UD7 is higher. This is a solid platform which continues to grow in line with the double-digit rate of the IGEL hardware business.”
The IGEL UD3’s AMD G-Series chip provides a 4K high-definition multimedia experience, with one 4K DisplayPort connector at 60Hz and one DVI-I connector for maximum flexibility.
“Users driving high-end displays will see a significant improvement with 4K and 60Hz,” Clephan said. “30 Hz provided an acceptable level of performance. That’s the speed that you watch YouTube videos at. But 60Hz is the speed that you watch high quality videos at, and it really is another level. It will also help users with Skype for Business, because latency kills you with unified communications.” Citrix has certified the UD3 for its Skype for Business video conferencing capabilities.
The new processor will upgrade performance noticeably, although Clephan indicated that the performance improvement is very dependent on the specific application being run.
The IGEL UD3 features up to 4GB DDR4 RAM. It also offers support for Citrix HDX RealTime Media Engine (RTME) 2.4, and has passed all Citrix Ready HDX certification levels including HDX Technology, HDX Premium and HDX 3D Pro.
Simon Clephan, IGEL’s Vice President of Business Development and Strategic Alliances
“Being able to meet all of the Citrix HDX certifications is a fairly big deal,” Clephan said. “The earlier version of the product met the first two, but wasn’t able to meet the HDX 3D Pro level.”
Clephan said that while the UD3 doesn’t have the higher end pizzaz, it is less expensive, and meets 90 per cent of all use cases.
“This is a workhorse model, not a thoroughbred,” he said. “But it gets better and better all the time. It’s very important to match price and performance so we work very hard to keep it highly competitive and offer one of the best price-performance ratios on the market. IGEL will never be the low-cost product on the market. However, we believe that we offer the best TCO with our Universal Management Suite management platform, and our five-year warranty. Even though this is a less expensive model, it has been engineered extensively. For example, we avoid fans, because moving parts can break. So the only way to get rid of heat is very good airflow. We spend a lot of time on that and work with AMD to run the processors at the lowest possible speed we can, so that the heat doesn’t kill the box.”
IGEL UD3 with the AMD Embedded G-Series SoC is available now through IGEL channel partners, who are their sole route to market.
