FAIRFIELD, Conn., August 25, 2005 – Lenovo today announced Sacred Heart University will begin providing students and faculty with new ThinkPad T43 notebooks from Lenovo this fall. The decision is designed to ease hardware manageability, reduce total cost of ownership and offer students the best technical experience possible.
Sacred Heart University’s technology focus is on innovation, performance and productivity to benefit its students. For example, 10 years ago, Sacred Heart was one of the first universities in the nation to implement a mobile computing program. In 2000, Sacred Heart became one of the first universities in the country to institute a wireless computer network. Through the years, Sacred Heart University has continued to refine its notebook program to replace students’ PCs every two years. This year, the university will strengthen this leadership with the deployment of ThinkPad notebooks from Lenovo, equipped with ThinkVantage Technologies to help students connect, protect and support their PCs. Labor Day weekend will mark the first roll-out of more than 1900 new notebooks.
“ThinkPad notebooks with ThinkVantage Technologies from Lenovo will provide an outstanding user experience for our students, faculty and the service and support team at Sacred Heart,” said Mike Trimble, assistant vice president for technology, Sacred Heart University. “Solutions such as the Active Protection System for hard-drive protection, stainless steel hinges and carbon fiber reinforced cases for durability are a few of the features that will withstand student use and abuse and help reduce the total cost of ownership. Sacred Heart strives to expose students to the best technical experience possible and working with Lenovo helps us achieve that goal.”
Connect and Protect My PC To help make PCs less dependent on IT staff or user intervention for tasks such as deployment, backup, maintenance and security, Sacred Heart University students will use ThinkVantage Technologies available on their ThinkPad notebooks. Access Connections, a ThinkVantage Technology that can automatically reconfigure PC and network settings to find available wired and wireless networks, will help students simplify the management of Internet connections on and off campus. Students can also utilize Rescue and Recovery, a tool that can restore lost data, applications and settings in the event of a software failure, even if the main operating system isn’t working. Another feature, called Active Protection System, will arm students’ notebooks with hard-disk crash protection, in case of an accidental drop or fall.
To increase hardware accountability, each ThinkPad notebook will be embedded with Absolute Software’s Computrace technology (1), an anti-theft traceability tool located in the PC hardware that can physically locate missing notebooks or facilitate remote deletion of sensitive data in the event a notebook is lost or stolen. For further hardware protection, Sacred Heart University will provide students with a Kensington MicroSaver Security Cable lock to physically secure their notebook to a stationary object.
Wear, Tear and Repair By signing on to Lenovo’s Warranty Self-Maintainer Program, Sacred Heart University can provide quicker turn-around rates and more efficient PC service by training its own technical support team. Building an in-house IT staff helps keep notebooks in students’ hands by eliminating the need for shipping hardware off campus for repair. “The Factory”, which houses a notebook service and support center and IT call center on campus, offers Lenovo-certified technicians that provide over-the-counter repair services for greater flexibility and decreased costs.
In addition, “The Factory” maintains an inventory of notebooks available for exchange anytime a student encounters a problem and also stocks charged batteries that students can exchange for discharged batteries throughout the day.
ThinkPad notebooks deployed by Sacred Heart will also include VitalSource Technologies Personal Portable Library featuring more than 3,000 works including history books, art, maps and classic literature. The digital library software will enable students to use their notebooks to search, read and take notes for assignments, reducing the need for students to carry heavy backpacks.
About Sacred Heart University Sacred Heart University is the first Catholic university in the United States to be led and staffed by lay people. Located in Fairfield, Connecticut, Sacred Heart is the second-largest Catholic university in New England. With over 5,700 undergraduate and graduate students, Sacred Heart has experienced two-fold enrollment growth during the past ten years due to outstanding academic programs in business, education, liberal arts and health sciences. Sacred Heart is a Division-I member of the NCAA. For more information, please visit www.sacredheart.edu .
About Lenovo Lenovo (HKSE: 992)(ADR: LNVGY) is the world’s third-largest personal computing company. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the company has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina, and develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure, and easy-to-use technology products and services. For more information, see www.lenovo.com .
Notes 1. Absolute Software’s Computrace solution is integrated with the BIOS firmware of select ThinkPad notebooks from Lenovo.
Lenovo, ThinkPad, and ThinkVantage are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo.
