Stories by Network World staff

Infrastructure Briefs

Perle Systems Limited recently announced the SmartServer 400e, a router that offers twinaxial terminal server support for 5250 terminals that need access to SNA applications on an AS/400 server. The firm believes the product will play best with AS/400 users who want to start migrating to IP and Ethernet but need to support twinaxial connections. The SmartServer 400e consolidates Ethernet LAN, PC dial-up, and locally attached twinaxial terminal and WAN connections in one box that has two 2M bit/sec WAN ports, optional twinaxial cards and eight asynchronous communications ports. The box supports IP- and IPX-based LAN, and uses Routing Information Protocol and RIP-2 routing protocols. The SmartServer 400e supports voice over IP, 6.3K bit/sec voice compression and traffic prioritization occupying 9.2K bit/sec of bandwidth per channel. It will be available this quarter and will cost around $2,195.

Enterprise Applications Briefs

McAfee.com Corp., located in Santa Clara, this week will unveil VirusScan 5.0, featuring automatic backup and new customization tools for the virus-fighting software.

Carrier Briefs

Global carrier Infonet last week announced it has expanded U.S. dial-access coverage to more than 400 cities. The Infonet service, called DialXpress, supports native IP dial using PPP with analog speeds up to 56K bit/sec, ISDN speeds up to 128K bit/sec and digital subscriber line support due later this year. DialXpress, available in 50 countries, is designed to provide "density of coverage" to support the needs of "users and their partners for expanding e-commerce services," says Marc Patterson, Infonet's vice president for remote access and wireless services.

Briefs

Two privately held companies will join the fold at Cisco Systems Inc., following acquisition deals worth more than $500 million in stock. Cisco announced this week it has reached an agreement to buy InfoGear Technology of Redwood City, Calif., for $301 million worth of Cisco stock. Cisco also said it plans to buy JetCell of Menlo Park, Calif. InfoGear makes Internet appliances and software used to manage such devices. JetCell develops in-building wireless telephony products for corporate networks. Cisco will pay $200 million in stock for JetCell, whose products, currently in trials, give enterprise customers' employees the ability to use a standard cellular phone to access their corporate voice system and roam from their private corporate network and the public cellular network.

Enterprise Applications Briefs

Microsoft is taking an equity stake of about 20% in RealNames, whose software lets Internet users access sites by typing in only the name of a company or brand at the address line on their browsers rather than the full URL. Microsoft also has agreed to bolster its support for the RealNames keyword approach to Internet searching in its Microsoft Network Search and Internet Explorer Web browser offerings. The companies declined to reveal the dollar value of Microsoft's investment in RealNames.

Carrier Briefs

State telecom regulators have decided they don't like a lobbying effort under way to allow Bell companies to carry data and Internet traffic across local boundaries before they get general long-distance approval. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which represents telecom and energy regulators in the 50 states, passed a resolution opposing congressional bills to free up Bells to create long-haul data backbones even before they submit state-by-state, long-distance applications to the government. Some of the Bells have funded a lobbying group headed by former White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry to push for the idea, arguing they could provide a needed boost in Internet backbone capacity. Critics say the Bells could do a lot more for the Internet by concentrating on speeding up the local loop.

Briefs

Brocade Communications Systems Inc. last week introduced a switch module that provides remote access to SANS over Wan links.

Briefs

E-commerce system providers Commerce One Inc. and InterWorld Corp. last week formed a partnership to help businesses set up buying and selling marketplaces over the Internet. Commerce One, a provider of Internet-based software systems for corporate purchasing portals, and InterWorld, a vendor of software and services for online business sales, said they plan to develop applications for businesses to use over Commerce One's MarketSite Global Trading Portal, an online exchange. The companies plan to have products available for sale within four months.

Briefs

Cabletron Systems Inc. has announced a partnership with Siemens AG Information and Siemens' Communication Networks Group to integrate and market Enterprise IP, a new line of communication products.

Briefs

Stock in 3Com Corp.'s Palm unit blasted off last week following an initial public offering in which its share price rose as high as $160 before returning to about half that level in late trading on Friday. Palm Inc.'s leading position in handheld computing devices and its strong sales drove intense interest in its IPO at a time when many publicly offered companies have little or no track record, analysts said. In the days leading up to the IPO, 3Com adjusted the pre-offering price from $15 per share to $30 per share before settling on $38 late Wednesday. Palm held 66 percent of the U.S. market for handheld devices as of mid-1999, according to IDC, but is facing increasingly tough competition.

Briefs

Oracle Corp., Sears, Roebuck & Co. and French retailer Carrefour AG last week announced the formation of a business-to-business online purchasing exchange that they said will be the largest of its kind in the retail industry. Called the GlobalNetXchange, the online marketplace will initially serve Sears' and Carrefour's $80 billion supply-chain purchases from a combined 50,000 suppliers, partners and distributors, the companies said.

Carrier Briefs

Growing data carrier Intermedia Communications Inc. has inked a deal to offer international carrier Infonet Corp.'s Global Frame Relay service under the Intermedia brand. Infonet offers frame relay to 45 countries. Intermedia, originally an alternative local carrier with regional connections in the Southeast, has branched out to many areas of the country and has added Internet access, Web hosting and shared-tenant integrated-access services to its portfolio.

Infrastructure Briefs

Nokia Corp. last week announced a new Unix version of its wireless application protocol (WAP) server software, which will let thousands, rather than hundreds, of users simultaneously access corporate data via wireless devices.

Briefs

Mortice Kern Systems Inc. in Waterloo, Ont., is readying a product called Change Integrity that's designed to manage the workflow for teams maintaining information such as Web content and e-business applications. The product, currently in beta tests, includes a Java application server based on BEA Systems Inc.'s WebLogic technology as well as Web and proprietary client software. Once one member of a project team has completed a task, the Change Integrity software automatically notifies others on the team to proceed with their tasks. Mortice Kern Systems is targeting midsize organizations with the software, which the company says works best in environments where not more than a few hundred end users are accessing a server. However, servers can be linked to support bigger project teams. The software is slated for availability in early March. Preliminary pricing is $3,200 per server with Secure Sockets Layer and $200 less without it, and $600 per client.

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