Web Development

DataTraveler BlackBox is a USB Flash drive available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities that has met Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS).

The new head of Linksys a division of global network Company Cisco claims he is committed to chasing down the home and SOHO market with the help of digital integrators.

 Michael Pocock who recently joined Linksys from Polaroid said “I’ve been a big fan and very passionate about [the notion] that the home market had to be integrated, that there is an opportunity to take advantage of all the various converging products: voice over IP with multimedia, with networking needing to go into the mass market,” Pocock says. “I think Linksys is in a perfect position to take advantage of that. … When you look at what vendors would be positioned to pull all of those various pieces together and be able to penetrate not only the home market but also SMB, in my opinion, there wasn’t anybody better suited in the industry than Linksys.”

While Linksys has traditionally focused its sales of home products through retail stores, Pocock says the sophistication of new connected home solutions requires the help of skilled digital integrators. Pocock says one of his jobs at Linksys will be facilitating the interaction of integrators and retail chains to target the home.

“Whereas a lot of retailers want to reach [the home] market as well, they’re going to have to, in my opinion, partner with local VARs to be able to deliver the total solution,” Pocock says. “I think we’re going to have to facilitate an alliance or facilitate retailers hooking up with local VARs to be able to deliver the total solution. I think retailers are great in terms of providing product selection and some of the services, but to install an integrated solution for the home requires, I think, a little more expertise.”

Pocock started with Linksys on May 8, taking over for Linksys co-founders Victor and Janie Tsao. The husband and wife team, who previously shared the role Pocock has taken on, are moving into senior vice president roles within Cisco, where they will help the networking giant develop business opportunities in China.

With the changing of the guard, Pocock says his past experience with distributors, VARs and integrators will help Linksys continue its efforts to bulk up its home and SMB portfolio.

Pocock is probably best known to the integrator channel through his tenure at Compaq Computer, where he served as North American channel chief and later headed up Compaq’s worldwide commercial PC business. He most recently served as president and CEO of Polaroid, which he joined in 2003.

“We have to continue to make strategic investments because that market is so large and so untapped, and a lot of VARs I’ve spoken with just feel like nobody has really come to them and leveraged their skill sets, their expertise in delivering that solution,” Pocock says.

The investments Linksys will make will include expanding and improving its networked entertainment and communication devices for the home, Pocock says. On the one hand Linksys will be making the devices more appealing for integrators to install in the home, and at the same time easier for consumers to use.

“As the masses start buying the products, they’re so used to cool sexy designs that are available to them in other categories, and they’re going to expect more of the same,” Pocock says. “It’s one thing when you have a router that’s out of sight, out of mind. It’s another when you start to get into some of the set-top boxes, some of the DVD-type stuff where you’re integrating multiple functions into a single device. Those are more out in the open, so you have to meet the needs of the consumer. So I think you’ll start seeing more and more focus on our part in terms of the design of the product and the user interface because people want it simple and easy to use.”

relationship with its distributors. As it moves its focus more into integrator-led sales for the home, Pocock says deeper partnering with distributors will help it provide the resources and services that integrators need in the home.
“We have to become more important to some of the distribution partners because they are the ones that provide all of these elements to the VARs. So rather than go wider, I think we need to go deeper within the accounts that we have and a have a broader portfolio of products and services than we do today,” Pocock says. “Part of that is led by the leading-edge technology that we’re working on that will be coming out over the next 12 to 24 months, some of which you’re familiar with as part of the Linksys One [hosted VoIP offering].”

Linksys launched its Linksys One division and IP communications platform in November. The Linksys One strategy calls for integrators to sell Linksys hardware bundled with hosted VoIP services from carriers and other service providers in exchange for monthly commissions. Linksys has says a nationwide rollout of Linksys One is slated for the fall.

While some channel partners that were given a sneak peek at an early version of the Linksys One product line earlier this year says it fell short of expectations, Jerry Bailey, president and COO of network integrator Digitel, Atlanta, is excited about the solution. Digital will hosted VoIP services through Linksys One channel partners via its NeoNova Network Services division.

“You’ll see some activity starting in June or July where you’ll see Cisco and Linksys start marketing to VARs,” Bailey says.

Janie Tsao says that as she prepares to leave Linksys, she’s comfortable with the progress made in the Linksys One rollout.

“It’s a full solution, and when a full solution comes along, it naturally takes longer than just creating a box. We are working on a carrier-class product, so we have to go through the process of testing and getting the services ready,” she says. “We feel comfortable with the service partners that are signing up right now that we will be coming out and making additional announcements to our channel partners later in the year to let them know how they can sell the product.”

While they are probably well acquainted with power failures, most homeowners are not aware that power management technology exists at all.

Dell Australia – once, like its parent, a fierce advocate of direct-only PC sales – will be marketing some PC models and accessories in retails stores before the year is out. SmartHouse News has been told that the deal could involve Harris Technology and JB Hi Fi who recently said that they want to take on Harvey Norman in the PC market.

That pledge was given by executives at yesterday’s launch of Dell’s new consumer-focused strategy, including the release of new Dell Inspiron notebook PCs in eight candy colours – a far cry from Dell’s conservative grey or silver notebook lines.

The new Inspirons, aimed squarely at the consumer segment, may be among those sold via retail outlets “later this year”. They are available for order from today direct from Dell in the company’s traditional manner. A Dell Australia spokesperson told CDN no decision had yet been reached on which retails chains would offer Dell gear. But the company has already been besieged with reps from most major operators banging on its door, he said.

A company-owned Dell Store, in the manner of Apple USA’s Apple Stores, is not currently under consideration in Australia. But the number of Dell “kiosks” – where catalogues can be perused and orders placed – in shopping complexes would rise from five to seven, McKeon confirmed.

A major stumbling block in sealing deals with retailers like Harvey Norman, OfficeWorks or David Jones might be pricing: the retailers would insist on having good margins, but still not being undercut by Dell’s online operation.

The problem is not insoluble: in the US Dell has been selling some consumer systems at Wal-Mart stores for some months. Meanwhile Dell Down Under has been encouraged by a telephone survey it commissioned, which suggests four-out-of-five Australians want colours other than traditional beige or grey when it comes to choosing a notebook for their home.

They’ll certainly get their wish with the new Inspiron line. Models are available in the customer’s choice of Jet Black, Alpine White, Espresso Brown, Flamingo Pink, Midnight Blue, Ruby Red, Spring Green or Sunshine Yellow. Buyers also get to choose from three screen sizes (14-, 15.4- and 17-inch) and an optional 2-megapixel webcam. Prices start at $1599.

Free online storage for all

Dell also showed off its new “ultra-thin” XPS M1330, claimed to be the world’s thinnest 13-inch notebook: just 23.1mm thick and weighing in at 1.78kg. (Models on show at yesterday’s media launch were even lighter, as journos found when picking them up – all turned out to be mere shells, or mock-ups: the internal gubbins, it seems, are still being put together in the factories of Dell’s Asian suppliers).

“XPS” is Dell’s premium high-performance line, but the local HQ has kept pricing down, starting at $1899. M1313 buyers get a choice of three colours: Tuxedo Black, Pearl White or the tautological Crimson Red. It comes with a standard Webcam, dual microphones and optional fingerprint reader.

Buyers of the new models will get 12 months of free online storage at Dell Online Backup, a new global service. Inspiron buyers get 3 gigabytes of space; XPS aficionados cop 10 gigs. – David Frith

Mitsubishi has launched its largest LCD display to date – a 42-inch monitor that is designed for business use in boardrooms or for digital signage.

The display features a tile matrix capability that allows you to link up to 16 panels at one time to form a single configuration to display images to scale, if necessary. With a  claimed contrast ratio of 1500:1, it also features motion shift and Gamma control; a screen protection feature to prevent burn-in, brightness controls and a cooling fan.

“Due to its great impact and professional look, digital signage is being used in more areas to help companies stand out from the competition. Trade shows in particular are seeing an increase in the number of stands making use of the eye-catching displays. Important reasons for choosing to go with digital signage are  the ability to change the screens messaging at short notice and the impact of linking the screens together to create a gigantic image, delivering maximum impact”, said Mitsubishi Electric’s Paul Calderara.

Mitsubishi says to help preserve the life span of the panels, the display detects when an input signal is no longer active and will automatically switch to power save mode to help protect the display. It also has a built in scheduling facility, which allows you to set automatic times for the display to switch on and off.

The unit comes with Mitsubishi Electric’s two-year limited onsite warranty and optional speakers are also available for this model.
                                                                   
RRP $ 3799

See: www.MitsubishiElectric.com.au

UPDATED: Analysts expect Apple Computer’s new MacBook to be a significant demand driver for Australian resellers who are now getting the benefit of consumers walking through the door looking for Intel based notebooks and PC’s that run Windows and iPods.

Microsoft is set to snub Adobe in a spat over the inclusion of PDF technology in the new Microsoft Office software. the Issue could end up in Court.

Microsoft has canceled plans to include an automatic way to save documents in the popular PDF format in the next version of its Office software, amid an ongoing dispute with Adobe who last year aquired Macromedia.

Instead, users who purchase Office 2007, due out to consumers in early 2007, will have to download separate, free software to save documents created in Office products such as Word and Excel as PDFs.

The spat with Adobe, which developed the popular PDF, or Portable Document Format, comes as Microsoft is preparing to launch its own competing format for saving documents that cannot be easily modified. Microsoft’s technology is called XPS, which stands for XML Paper Specification.

Microsoft had previously said Office 2007 would be able to save PDFs. But on Friday, a Microsoft lawyer said Adobe had objected to Microsoft’s plans and discussions between the two companies had broken down.

David Heiner, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, said Adobe had wanted Microsoft to charge customers for the ability to save Office documents in either the PDF format or Microsoft’s new, competing XPS format.

Heiner said Microsoft would not agree to charge for the capabilities, but did decide to offer them as separate, free downloads. He said Microsoft expects Adobe to take legal action, perhaps in the European Union.

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, Adobe spokeswoman Jodi Warner said: “As our CEO Bruce Chizen has stated numerous times in the past, Microsoft has a monopoly and we are always concerned about the possibility that they might abuse that monopoly.”

Warner said Adobe has discussed those concerns with both Microsoft and regulators, but she declined to comment on the details of any discussions with the software maker.

A spokesman for European Union antitrust regulators said they are not involved in the dispute at this point.

“It is an intellectual rights issue, not a competition issue,” said EU spokesman Jonathan Todd.

Adobe’s PDF format is popular with government agencies and businesses in part because it allows users to share documents that can’t easily be edited or changed. Also, users do not need to have a copy of Microsoft Word or another paid product to see documents, and reader software is available for a wide range of computers.

Currently, creating a PDF file from Office requires separate software, ranging from the $449 Adobe Acrobat Professional to free products like Pdf995. Other word-processing products also ship with tools for savings documents as PDFs.

In the closed-door discussions between the Microsoft and Adobe, Heiner said Adobe also raised concerns about new technology being built into the forthcoming version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system that would let people save documents in Microsoft’s competing XPS format.

Heiner said Microsoft agreed to let computer makers remove that functionality if they wanted to. Microsoft also offered to ship Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader, which lets people view PDF documents, with the new version of Windows, called Vista. He said Adobe was considering that request. Microsoft had also offered to include a PDF creation tool.

After many delays, Vista also is scheduled to be released to consumers in January. Heiner said he thought it would be possible to include the free Adobe Reader in Vista and still make the planned January consumer launch, although he said things would have to move quickly.

“We’re saying to Adobe, if you have any concerns about Microsoft shipping XPS software in Windows, we will ship anything comparable you want,” Heiner said

The proliferation of hard-drive-based CE and computer devices may present a golden opportunity for storage vendors, but the category is not without its pitfalls, said John Coyne, Western Digital’s president/COO.

Toshiba has been accused of trying to buy its way into the HD DVD market by discounting its new HD DVD player.

Sony who are set to significantly expand their PC operation in Australia will next month start selling a portable computer that uses flash memory instead of a hard drive, adding PCs to the growing list of electronics that use NAND flash chips made by Samsung Electronics and Toshiba.

Sony who are set to significantly expand their PC operation in Australia will next month start selling a portable computer that uses flash memory instead of a hard drive, adding PCs to the growing list of electronics that use NAND flash chips made by Samsung Electronics and Toshiba.

The US $1,800 paperback-book sized computer has 16 gigabytes of storage and goes on sale in thefrom July 3 in Japan, Sony said in a statement today. The device has longer battery life, faster data retrieval and better shock resistance because it uses flash, which has no moving parts, rather than a hard disk drive, or HDD, Tokyo-based Sony said.

Sony and rivals such as Samsung are replacing hard disk drives in PCs with NAND, as prices for the chips fall and capacity increases, spurring demand.

Gartner Inc., a market researcher, on June 21 said increasing sales of mobile devices is likely to lead to a memory shortage in the fourth quarter of 2006.

“It would not be surprising to see mini-notebook PCs equipped with NAND as a standard rather than HDDs by 2009,” Hiroshi Yoshihara, a Tokyo-based analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co. who has a “buy” rating on Toshiba, wrote in a June 15 report. Prices for NAND memory halve every year, he wrote.

Toshiba, the world’s second-largest maker of NAND flash memory after Samsung, gets more than half of its operating profit from the chips and in May said it plans to invest 1.02 trillion yen over three years in its semiconductor unit.

Market researcher ISuppli Corp. forecasts global sales of NAND flash to rise 29% to $13.8 billion in 2006, fueled by demand for mobile phones and portable music players such as Apple Computer’s iPod.

Apple may introduce a new iPod before the holiday shopping season, potentially exacerbating a shortage of NAND, Gartner said in its June 21 report. During last year’s holiday season, Apple sold a record 14 million iPods. Flash memory was used in 80% of all portable media devices last year.

Samsung on May 23 said it would sell a flash-only laptop that has 32-gigabytes of storage memory. The 2.3 million won ($2,400) computer is aimed at the Korean market, the South Korea-based company said.

Sony and Samsung have said their flash-based PCs are targeting users who want portable devices with more computing power than mobile phones and can be used to surf the Internet, e-mail, word-process and perform other functions on the move.