Crumbs
Rich T finds some tasty titbits you might have missed in the week's news
Tuesday 31 October 2006, 5:31 PM
Securing the perimeter - and the hole in the middle as well
Escaping from launch fever here at ZD Towers, I've spent Tuesday morning with an interesting LAN security start-up called Nevis Networks.
When I was first told of the company, the headlines immediately sprang to mind: Security start-up facing mountainous challenge; Nevis peaks with security capabilities... There were many more. But in the end, none of my pre-formed judgements had been correct.
Nevis has a team of some 190 employees creating silicon which helps to protect enterprise networks through either an appliance or a switch-based approach.
Now this is quite cool as neither product sits on the edge of the LAN, they actually sit in it between the other switches.
It's a rapidly growing area and one which is worth paying a bit of attention.
If you no longer know where the perimeter of your network is - due to mobile workers, contractors, extranets, mobile workers etc, then a security appliance or switch such as Nevis's might be what you are looking for.
Not to forget that there are a number of other companies doing this as well.
Consentry is one start-up worth looking at - it pretty much competes head-on with Nevis.
Router favourites Cisco Systems and Foundry Networks also have their own offerings: the former with NAC and the latter with secure switches.
It's interesting to compare not only the differing type of security protection available from these four firms, but also the price as well.
And of course the old trick to mind the costs of mandatory upgrades must be borne in mind as well.
Friday 27 October 2006, 2:50 PM
Is this the way to Kensington Olympia?
London's Kensington is not the easiest way to find your way around, especially if you're being lured by all those tall multi-million pound Georgian buildings and the odd limousine gliding past.
And so one of my interviewees at Kensington Olympia's Linux Expo event had become delayed en route to the event, unable to find his way from the station through the numerous millionaires' pads.
Of course, it hadn't been a problem - he'd become surrounded by "a hundred men with beards", and thought he'd follow them.
True enough, he ended up at Linux World, a small yet thriving event focused on all varieties of open source promotion.
Quite entertaining it was too, and that wasn't just the exhibitors.
Co-location company Qube Networks probably topped the bill - not so much by its services, but by its team of Maori warriors who paraded the tightly packed exhibition hall performing the Haka at frequently randomly-picked opportunities.
Though a largely male-dominated event, it was easy to find the women - they were all near the men in short skirts.
Entertainment aside, news dribbled through from some of the main suppliers and IT services companies keen to expand legacy revenue with open source services.
IBM was busy pushing both desktop and server Linux, while HP boasted of its growing commercial success from supporting a variety of distributions.
And the launch of the National Open Centre is looking promising.
The Birmingham-based project, launched at the event, aims to encourage the uptake of everything non-proprietary.
Now that has to be a welcome change.
Tuesday 24 October 2006, 3:18 PM
Cisco dives into top end conferencing
There's been much excitement at the ZDNet newsdesk today after Cisco revealed it would make a renewed play into video conferencing.
Seems Cisco's existing conferencing partners Polycom, Tandberg and Sony may not be too happy about Cisco's attempts to go it alone - all the kit from today's TelePresence announcement has been developed in-house - it's quite some departure from Cisco's buy-it-in strategy of the past few years.
The price of Cisco's kit has raised a few eyebrows - at £160,000 (OK - Cisco would rather we said $300,000 as it doesn't talk in sterling) it really is top end stuff.
I was briefed this morning by Cisco and any questions around cost were met dismissively.
No-one is turning it down on cost grounds, Cisco's unified comms director Clive Sawkins told me, although he admitted jokily that several customers had asked for a discount.
This is not to say it isn't good kit. In fact, the technology is impressive.
This morning's one-hour briefing was carried out using the TelePresence equipment, and it was pretty much like being in the same room - as long as you can tolerate a little latency.
The audio was spot on and the video quality impressive.
But at £160,000, we're still waiting for confirmation of names of businesses who have actually bought it.
We've asked Cisco, we know there is one anonymous customer, but as far as real names are concerned, we're still waiting...
Friday 20 October 2006, 5:12 PM
Cynicism over Newham Linux U-turn
The controversial CIO at London's Borough of Newham brought on more controversy this week as he branded open source as a "red herring" in front of dozens of senior IT professionals. The cio, Richard Steel, evaluated a Linux environment two years ago, only to turn his back on open source and pursue almost exclusively Microsoft software.
Steel's comments - and there was more related wisdom flowing to delegates at the IP'06 event where he was speaking - has met with cynicism from ZDNet's readers (see the talkbacks on the article).
Critics say Steel only evaluated Linux so he could obtain greater discounts from Microsoft, and that the Newham Microsoft programme is now just one big publicity exercise for the Redmond giant.
Certainly the public sector should not accept taxpayers' money to evaluate technologies they have no interest in adopting. But is there anything wrong with using taxpayers' money to make savings for taxpayers on a contract with an IT supplier?
Wednesday 11 October 2006, 5:45 PM
NHS IT debacle causes an irritation
So the academic IT experts who wrote to the Government to call for an independent review of the wobbling National Programme for IT (NPfIT) are just "an irritant" to the NHS, they claim.
If that is the NHS' view on 23 experts who are trying to aid such a critical national project - and the NHS refuses to comment on the story - then it is a real shame.
The academics are not trying to define themselves the direction of NPfIT - they are just trying to provoke the creation of a review by a range of thought-leaders to sort out the mess that the Project has this summer turned into.
The NHS and the Government behind it must be accountable for sorting out this multi-billion pound mess, and must not turn their back on experienced professionals who have a very valid view.
