Sep 17th, 2008 |
I spoke to a ton of companies on the show floor today and there were lots of show announcements and a few updates to some other products. I shot a lot of video with many of them, but for everyone else, here’s a round up. Note, some of these announcements are months old.
To get a summary of everything, feel free to watch my five minute show report.
Lenovo joins the server game for SMBs - Lenovo announced they’re joining the server game worldwide. They were previously only selling servers in China. They’ve got a total of five servers models - three tower and two rack mounts. But what makes Lenovo’s announcement interesting is they’re targeting the SMBs who might not necessarily have strong IT resources. They’ve got a suite of “easy” software tools on the machine that simplifies installation, updating, and management of the server plus a premium level of support for the first 90 days of ownership.
IBM invests in social software - First, I need to apologize to IBM for saying in my video show report that Lenovo was investing $15-$20 million in social software. Technically, it’s actually IBM. They’re developing a social software lab and their charter clients are Dow Jones, MIT, Harvard, and Reuters.
Citrix XenServer - Citrix is supporting the open source and free software virtual machine monitor, Xen (more info at Xen.org) and they’re selling their XenServer tools for managing the open environment. Citrix representative said they can dynamically rebuild environments with no downtime, can make change requests as they come in, and like what I’ve heard from IBM and CA, can shut down servers when at low capacity in order to save energy costs.
CA’s Data Center Automation Manager - Application that allows you to manage your servers in your data center. Can set up rules to have the automation manager automatically bring up or provision a new machine if traffic loads hit certain levels. Conversely, like what I’ve discussed with Citrix and IBM, CA’s Data Center Automation Manager can decommission a server after work hours or if traffic loads fall all in an effort to save energy costs.
Nokia phones integrated with the office phone system - The handset manufacturer showed off a couple new business mobile phones, the E66 and E71, which can be integrated, thanks to a partnership with Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco, in a fixed mobile environment in your enterprise. Both phones are GSM/Wi-Fi (VoIP enabled in Wi-Fi mode), plus video cameras on front and back for videoconferencing. Phones can be dual mode, allowing for a business and personal/private mode. So for example, you can have a desktop interface on the phone for business, and change the look and interface for when its your personal phone. Sounds cool, but honestly, I don’t know if anyone would actually switch between the two.
Foundry Networks FastIron GS series - It’s a PoE (Power over Ethernet) that’s now just 1 U high. The previous model was 1.5 U high. Models range from $1200-$2000.
Make sure you check out the summary of all coverage from Interop NY.
