enterprise

RIM gives India access to network, but not secure e-mails

RIM has granted India access to its BlackBerry network, but not the ability to monitor secure customer e-mails.

The BlackBerry maker confirmed today that the Indian government now has the means to access its Messenger service.

"RIM has now delivered a solution that enables India's wireless carriers to address their lawful access requirements for our consumer messaging services, which includes BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BlackBerry Internet Services (BIS) e-mail," Research In Motion said in a statement released today and e-mailed to CNET.

But RIM insisted that the access does not include the ability to monitor e-mails on … Read more

HP wins $2.5 billion contract with NASA

Hewlett-Packard has won a contract from NASA worth up to $2.5 billion.

The contract was awarded Monday and calls for Hewlett-Packard to provide and manage up to $2.5 billion worth of PCs, software, peripherals, and associated end-user and IT services for the space agency over 10 years, according to a NASA press release. Specifically, HP will offer services to support NASA personnel in business, science, research, and computation.

HP beat out longtime NASA contractor Lockheed Martin to pick up the lucrative project.

"Our team is disappointed that NASA selected another solution," Sheila Collins, a spokeswoman for … Read more

Seagate's 2.5-inch enterprise hard drive hits 1TB

Consumers already have access to 3.5-inch desktop hard drives with up to 3TB of storage and portable external hard drives with 1.5TB, but business users have had to live with hard drives with much less space.

That changed today, as Seagate announced its latest in 2.5-inch enterprise hard drives, the 1TB Constellation.2.

According to the hard-drive maker, the drive is the first in its class to offer 1TB of storage and speeds of up to 6Gbps.

Note that 6Gbps hard drives already have been available from Seagate for consumers, but only in a larger 3.5-inch design. The advantage of the 2.5-inch design is the fact that it can be used in more compact applications as well as applications in which the 3.5-inch drives are used.… Read more

Xserve's death not a deterrent for many IT admins

Those IT administrators who felt suckerpunched by Steve Jobs' decision to nix the Xserve seem to be recovering just fine.

There wasn't exactly weeping and gnashing of teeth (at least that we know of), but a lot of loyal Mac users in IT departments were seriously disappointed a few weeks ago when Apple said that as of January 31 the assembly line churning out the Xserve would be permanently halted. There was talk from some of ditching Macs altogether at work in a fit of bitter disappointment, and in light of some anticipated major technical challenges.

With a few … Read more

RIM calls news reports from India 'inaccurate'

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion says news reports suggesting that it's close to an agreement to provide India with lawful access to monitor and access network data are "inaccurate" and "misleading."

One story CNET found, published yesterday in the Indian paper Mint, quotes an unnamed senior official from India's Home Ministry who said that an agreement is near that would give the Indian government access to the encrypted data on RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES).

"They have in principle agreed to provide us recorded data from their servers," the senior home … Read more

Energy management software field gets crowded

EnerNoc, an efficiency software company, today introduced its line of business software geared toward helping companies better control their spending on energy.

The Boston-based company is well-established in the area of demand response; utilities contract with EnerNoc to manage contracts with corporations which agree to dial down energy use during peak times.

Utilities are increasingly tapping demand-response resources as they plan for future power capacity needs. Instead of turning on an auxiliary power plant during a time of high demand, such as a hot summer afternoon, hundreds or thousands of businesses or consumers will agree to scale back electricity consumption. … Read more

Red Hat announces Enterprise Linux 6

Red Hat today announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, the latest release of its operating platform, saying it is designed to support the new enterprise architectures of today, whether physical, virtual, or cloud-based.

The company said the new release includes "hundreds of technical feature enhancements" that are designed to improve agility, reduce costs, and reduce IT complexity. It also includes a range of updated server and desktop apps. More importantly, the company said the new release is designed to be as "future proof" as possible.

Pricing was not announced, but the company is … Read more

IT admins mourn Xserve's death

Not many MacBook or iPhone users are going to weep over the cancellation of an Apple server.

In fact, they probably didn't know Apple even made them. But when Apple announced it was shutting down production of the Xserve effective January 31, a very specific group of people took notice.

The Apple faithful inside corporate IT departments large and small are feeling jilted by Apple's sudden cold feet in the enterprise computing market. And though the announcement came last last week, the full impact of Apple's decision is still being absorbed.

Apple's own support forums are … Read more

Will the IT guy learn to love Apple?

When you're listening to music, it's likely your earbuds are plugged into an Apple device. Making a phone call? One out of every five people buying a smartphone are choosing an iPhone. And Apple's share of consumer laptop sales jumped to 10.6 percent in the last quarter.

Now here's the big question: Does your IT department, the guys who think it's just fine that you're still using a Windows XP laptop (and P.S., stop whining about it), give a hoot about all this Apple stuff?

Apple executives hope so. The pitch the company has been making in recent months is simple: Employees are already using plenty of Apple products on their own time and like them, and the iPad is a great, lightweight tool for Web-based corporate software. If you thought this was just lip service, Apple is even now working with the decidedly old-school consultants at Unisys to approach big corporate and government customers.

If Apple can make these sorts of corporate inroads, it could be Steve Jobs' greatest trick yet, because he's got a lot going against him in the corporate market. As of the third quarter of 2010, Apple sold 1.4 million of the 40.8 million computers sold to commercial customers, according to data gathered by IDC. That's 3.6 percent of all corporate computer sales.

Blame history...and inertia. Large companies usually have a contract with a Windows-based PC seller, often a third party. Switching contractors could result in higher costs and a lot of hassle, and can also be stymied by an old-school perception among the often conservative IT outfits at large companies that Macs are "toys," and can't integrate easily with Windows-based systems. On the mobile side, corporate IT shops long ago became comfortable working with Research In Motion's Blackberry; supporting the iPhone could add new complexity and potentially more cost to their work. Many people don't even know Apple sells servers. (It does.) And the iPad? Well, you could argue the touch-screen tablet computing market didn't exist a year ago.

Andrew Kaiser, a former Apple business sales manager who hawked enterprise systems to companies of all sizes until recently, said often the biggest barriers in selling were opinions formed sometimes decades ago, before Office for Mac, before virtualization, and before Apple switched to Intel chips. "Some had no idea Apple could integrate into a Windows platform," he recalled.

Employees like Thomas Caleshu, an interactive producer for educational software maker WestEd, have seen that firsthand. Caleshu is an iPhone and Mac user outside of work, and though he said there were no technical issues in getting his company's IT guys to add his iPhone and MacBook to the network, they were definitely skeptical.

"Some of the established IT people didn't trust or believe that I could sync my calendar on my phone, and on iCal on my Mac, and in a (corporate) Web interface," he said. "I had to prove it to them." … Read more