John Cox

Colubris next week plans to unveil the first of its wireless LAN controllers aimed at letting its corporate customers centralize security and management for its line of intelligent access points. Like somewhat similar products from the rivals such as Bluesocket and Reefedge, the Colubris controllers plug into an existing Ethernet infrastructure, and handle wireless net configuration, management and security.

Cisco has repackaged and modified some Airespace technology to create a rack-mount server that can track the locations of up to 1,500 wireless LAN devices to within 10 square meters. Using location data from the server, called Cisco Wireless Location Appliance 2700, network administrators can identify where all WLAN devices are, and see how WLAN signal strength varies over a site.More importantly, an API lets the same data be used by much more sophisticated third-party applications for such jobs as tracking medical equipment ranging from gurneys to infusion pumps.

Vendors keep changing the most basic element of the enterprise wireless LAN: the access point. Several hardware announcements at the Interop trade show this week add still more options to the "Chinese menu" of wireless LAN options for network executives.

Citrix Systems Inc. Tuesday formally unveiled version 4 of its Access Suite, with changes to three key applications in it. The new version introduces what the company calls SmartAccess, new code that in effect scans a client device trying to access Citrix-based applications. The code can, for example, distinguish between a user logging in on the headquarters net, or logging in from an Internet caf

Network executives are getting creative with mobile computing. They have to, because they're coping with rapidly changing technologies in networks, handheld devices and application development.

A Canadian electric company is putting the power it generates to good use: running an array of wireless nets intended to make it more competitive. TransAlta, in Calgary, generates and wholesales electricity using gas, coal and hydro plants in North America and Australia. It also mines the coal it burns and does energy trading. To support these activities, it's turning to a surprising range of wireless technologies:

Mobile software maker Agilix Inc. is readying a software development kit for building mobile applications that will let customers collect, index and organize information...

Beyond the high-end home theater speaker systems, paper shredders, advanced sewing machines and electrical adapters, last month