TEXT OF STORYSCOTT JAGOW: There’ve been plenty of stories about company laptops being stolen. Sometimes, the thieves make off with personal information about hundreds of thousands of people. Today, the telecom firm Alcatel-Lucent rolls out a new product designed to solve this problem. It’s called Nonstop Laptop Guardian. Ashley Milne-Tyte reports.

ASHLEY MILNE-TYTE: To keep their laptops secure while they’re traveling, businesspeople generally have to go online and log into a secure company network. Then they can back up data or get security updates.

But, says Dor Skuler of Alcatel-Lucent, the Nonstop Laptop Guardian lets the IT department back home communicate with the laptop no matter what its owner is up to.

DOR SKULER: This takes the employee out of the equation. You can do backups and patches at midnight while the laptop is turned off and put under your bed, for example.

And if the laptop is stolen, he says, IT can freeze the data it contains so thieves can’t plunder it.

Pete Lindstrom is an analyst with the Burton Group. He says Alcatel-Lucent has come up with a unique product.

PETE LINDSTROM: Over the next two or three years I think it could be a nice boost to the bottom line.

Perhaps it’s too unique? Only subscribers to wireless broadband services can use the product.

In New York, I’m Ashley Milne-Tyte for Marketplace.