Both Tales From The Sharpside and AddressOf.com talk about Stardock's new Multiplicity application to run multiple computers from the same keyboard / mouse. Sounds like a great application, actually. I think it may have a niche market that a lot of other programs have tried to fill, in the past (Scott mentions Win2VNC, for example). In my experience, though, I don't need to spend any extra $ on such an application. I guess I just don't see the advantage of using this program, over using a KVM switch or even Remote Desktop.
At home, I have my personal computer that I built from scratch. I've got my work laptop (IBM R50) that I bring home now and then. I've got a docking station for that laptop sitting on the same desk as my home computer. So, to make life easier, and save money / space on the desk, I purchased a small Belkin KVM switch so I can switch back and forth between my computers using a single keyboard and mouse. Works great for my needs at home.
I understand that Multiplicity would allow you to control a remote machine, though, with your second monitor, while a KVM swtich won't. You have to have both machines physically plugged into the KVM switch for it to work. So why not use Remote Desktop, if you already have two monitors? I actually do this at work, a lot. I have my laptop's LCD screen, and also an external LCD flatscreen monitor hooked up to the docking station at work. When I need to control a remote machine, I use Windows XP's built in Remote Desktop application to log onto the remote machine. I can move the RD connection over to my second monitor and expand it to full screen. At that point, all I need to do is move my mouse from one monitor to the other, in order to control the machine I desire. Doing this even supports Alt-Tab and other commands that apps like Win2VNC don't support.
Taking a look at the feature list provided by Multiplicity, I only find one feature that may be an advantage over Remote Desktop: "Control up to six secondary PC's"
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Multiplicity |
Multiplicity Pro |
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Control two PC's |
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Onscreen display |
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Hotkey control |
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Mouse lock controls |
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Alternative input devices |
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Screen fade/darken controls |
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Clipboard sharing |
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Control up to six secondary PC's |
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Copy files/folders between machines |
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However, without having any personal experience using this feature, I really don't know if this is just a licensing issue that allows you to install the client app on more than one machine, and control one machine at a time, or if it truely allows you to control multiple machines at the same time. Even in RD, though, all I need to do is open multiple RD connections. If I had enough monitors hooked up to my system, I could control one desktop on each monitor.
With all this in mind - what's the benefit of Multiplicity vs. Remote Desktop? Perhaps there will be a marked advantage when the OS/X client is made available. But until then, I'll stick with my free Remote Desktop.