Adobe releases Acrobat 8, updates Creative Suite
Adobe Systems Inc. has introduced Acrobat 8, a new version of its popular document authoring and reading software, and integrated it with its upgraded Creative Suite 2.3 Premium. Acrobat 8 now offers Acrobat Connect, which allows online users to discuss and edit documents or other material in a real-time conference for a monthly fee. Also available is Acrobat Connect Professional for larger meetings and with more features, including to chat using VoIP. Bundled into the latest Creative Suite release is the Dreamweaver 8 Web development software. It also includes Acrobat 8 Professional, which supports the PDF/X-1a, PDF/X-3 files, PDF/X-4, and PDF/A formats.
Availability: Acrobat 8 available in November, Creative Suite in Q4, Acrobat Connect in early 2007 Pricing: Acrobat 8 starts at US $229, Creative Suite US$1199, Adobe Connect US$39 per month, or US$395 per year, per user URL: tinyurl.com/uu9e and tinyurl.com/g5l4p
EMC launches new data management software
Network storage vendor EMC Corp. has introduced a new data storage management product that is the fruit of three software acquisitions the company has made in recent years. EMC’s Infoscape intelligent information management software is designed to organize the thousands of unstructured computer files in an enterprise computer system. The software organizes files by their content, their importance or whether there are regulations requiring they be saved. The company also launched EMC Information Management Strategy Service, a consulting service to help enterprises design, build and run an information management system. The new offerings were developed with technology EMC acquired from the acquisition of three document management software companies: Legato Systems Inc. and Documentum Inc., both in 2003, and Smarts Inc., in early 2005.
Availability: Available now Pricing: The base Infoscape software module is US$125,000 and capacity licensing starts at US$9,000 per terabyte URL: tinyurl.com/n55wm
IBM boosts desktop Linux with Sametime
IBM has added to its repertoire of enterprise desktop Linux software, announcing that its Lotus Sametime instant messaging client software now runs on the open source operating system. The Sametime 7.5 desktop client, which also offers VoIP capabilities, is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. On Linux, Sametime supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 9, and will support SLED 10 soon. A Linux server version of Sametime 7.5 is expected in early 2007.
Availability: Available now Pricing: A full Sametime subscription costs US$55 per user per year URL: tinyurl.com/z9wcu
IP security video surveillance
Ottawa’s March Networks has launched two new IP video offerings. The R5 VOS (Video Operating System), the next evolution of March Network’s R5 Visual Intelligence software, has been enhanced to work on open, industry-standard servers and storage platforms and designed to scale down to smaller customers looking for an IP-centric video tool. March also released the 6316 Powered IP Encoder. It allows customers to integrate analogue cameras into an IP video infrastructure. The conversion of analogue camera feeds to digital data allows the consolidated video streams to travel over cost-effective CAT-5/6 network cabling to a central IT server, where R5 VOS provides the secure video management and storage. The 6316 Encoder also lets users migrate to an IP video environment without jeopardizing their current investment in analogue surveillance cameras.
Availability: Available now URL: tinyurl.com/eqtku and tinyurl.com/j7eon
Dell, Symantec launch SMB product
Dell Inc. and Symantec Corp. have launched a jointly developed product they say can help small businesses filter and archive their e-mail. Secure Exchange bundles Dell hardware and Symantec software that can be used to deploy antivirus and antispam shields, and archive and retrieve e-mail. The tool works with Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory mailboxes.
Availability: Available now Pricing: A 500-seat license for Secure Exchange is priced at US$54,678 URL: tinyurl.com/euafz
NetApp unveils data classification tool
Network Appliance Inc. has announced a new data assessment service that aims to help IT operations comply with various regulations. The new NetApp services come a month after the company released two software modules for its Information Server 1200 (IS1200) data classification hardware appliance, which searches for information and classifies it. NetApp licenses the new software and the IS1200 appliance from Kazeon Systems Inc. The new Netapp Transparent Migration Manager software can be used to migrate data to different storage tiers based on user-defined policies. The new NetApp Retention Manager can be used to burn data to write-once read-many disks, which are required by some Security and Exchange Commission regulations.
Availability: Available now Pricing: The NetApp IS1200 starts at US$30,000 per module URL: tinyurl.com/lmfwt
IBM unveils new tape virtualization engine
IBM Corp. has unveiled a new virtual tape drive management system for mainframes that compares to similar technology introduced last spring by rival Sun Microsystems Inc. The IBM System Storage TS7700 Virtualization Engine is the successor to its TotalStorage Virtual Tape Server and offers increased capacity, faster processing speed and improved disaster recovery features. The TS 7700 offers 6TB of disk cache storage capacity, a four-fold increase over the 1.5TB of cache in the previous model, and an available 3:1 data compression ratio enhances capacity further. Also, because it operates in a grid computing environment, the 7700 can simultaneously copy data to two different tape storage sites for improved disaster recovery. Data can be “mirrored” to multiple sites and the system will know where to find it.
Availability: Available now URL: tinyurl.com/q773c
ScriptLogic adds USB lockdown to suite
ScriptLogic has updated its Desktop Authority PC administration software with USB and port security, and the ability to regularly refresh PC configurations.The security option in Desktop Authority 7.5 allows a PC to be locked down — not just to prevent data being copied onto a USB stick or MP3 player, but also to prevent beaming via Bluetooth or even local printing, for example. A PC’s configuration can also now be refreshed hourly — to add a new printer or file server, for example — without requiring users to log out and in again. Availability: Available now Pricing: US$58 per user URL: tinyurl.com/fv7r7
Fastap designed for texting, IM
Telus has announced the availability of the LG 490, a handset optimized for e-mail, text and instant messaging, in the Canadian market. The phone features Digit Wireless’ Fastap keypad, which integrates raised letter keys around a standard numeric phone keypad to allow for simpler and more intuitive text entry. Access to MSN Hotmail and MSN Messenger is simplified through Telus’ Spark offerings, as well as Web browsing and downloadable videos, images and ringtones. The LG 490 itself features an integrated digital camera, Bluetooth support and can act as a wireless modem.
Availability: Available now Pricing: Promotional price of $79.99 on a three-year contract, $249.99 without contract URL: tinyurl.com/no3bq
Google upgrades enterprise search device
Google Inc. has enhanced its enterprise search device, doubling its capacity and adding new query capabilities. The Search Appliance’s maximum capacity has been increased to 30 million documents, up from 15 million. The increased capacity comes via a software upgrade that also includes search query enhancements. The Search Appliance is a hardware box with Google search engine software designed to index and retrieve documents stored in enterprise servers. The model that can index up to 30 million documents is the GB-8008, the line’s most advanced. Google doesn’t disclose its price but a spokesperson said its 30 million document configuration can cost “in the high six figures.” Also with this upgrade, all Search Appliance models have gained the ability to limit search results by a date range.
Availability: Available now URL: tinyurl.com/7oumn
Red Hat announces JBoss bundle
Red Hat has announced the first tangible fruits of its acquisition of middleware vendor JBoss, which it bought in April, in the form of the Red Hat Application Stack. Pitched as an open source alternative to integrated proprietary application platforms, Red Hat said the stack is designed to run standards-based LAMP or Java-based applications. The open source bundle is aimed at helping developers cut the cost of developing Web SOA-based applications. It includes support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss Application Server and Hibernate — an object-oriented programming tool — and open source databases, including MySQL and PostgreSQL. Benefits are said to include the simplification of open source code through an integrated application platform and increased developer efficiency because the technologies are designed to work together. Software vendors benefit as a result of faster time to market, according to Red Hat.
Availability: Available now URL: tinyurl.com/p66c6
Cisco doubles port count for 10-gigabit switches
Cisco Systems Inc. has announced a 10 Gigabit Ethernet module with eight ports for its Catalyst 6500 series switches, doubling the number of ports and increasing switching performance by a claimed rate of up to 60 per cent. The eight-port module provides 64Gbps of switching capacity in data centre clusters, up from 40Gbps in Cisco’s four-port module. The new module is also priced 30 per cent lower on a per-port basis than the four-port version, said Cisco. Cisco faces competition from Force10 Networks Inc., Foundry Networks Inc. and other 10 Gigabit Ethernet vendors in a competitive pricing environment.
Availability:Available now Pricing: Starts at US$37,500 URL: tinyurl.com/p8noc
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