My wife lost a Blackjack Smartphone a few years ago, and all she had to do was contact her IT department and the phone was wiped remotely. Some Blackberrys and even the iPhone and other cheap mobile phones can handle the simple task of remote wipe. Why is it then that we keep hearing in the news that a laptop was stolen with gigs of sensitive data on them; why can't laptops be remotely wiped? The engineers at Fujitsu must have been wondering the same thing, because they have developed a solution and formed the partnerships necessary to make it happen.

Fujitsu, in conjunction with Wilcom Inc. have announced a combination hardware and software solution that will enable a lost or stolen laptop to be remotely wiped while on the Wilcom networks. With a special on-board communication module developed by Fujitsu, a laptop with the proper command, will wipe its own HDD and become an expensive brick. This should bring piece of mind to corporate and personal users with sensitive information stored on their machines. The cool thing is that wipe commands can be issued even when the machine is off, and they are held in cue until the machine boots up, and then... WHAMO!

This service should be out in the the third quarter of 2009. With identity theft, technology theft, and scams on the rise, Fujitsu's data security solutions will be a welcome addition.

Via Akihabaranews