However, some observers say that the SEC may be tempted to conclude that the new breed of special-purpose vehicles being created by the likes of Goldman have been set up specifically to get around the 500-shareholder rule.
Increasingly, these devices look less like Windows PCs than a new breed of network client- simple, special purpose devices that access the user's data, applications and services on networked servers.
In the past few years, a handful of IT vendors have begun offering a new breed of engineered systems or optimized systems designed to offer pre-bundled and pre-tested purpose-built machines that free customers from the drudgery of endless integration busywork.