Services

When visiting Niagara Falls, chances are you're too enthralled by the beauty and power of the cataract to think of anything else.

As a mobile TV service from one major U.S. carrier gets rolling, vendors at the CTIA Wireless show this week in Orlando, Florida, will be highlighting video as a key emerging technology to make the mobile experience -- and service providers -- richer.

"Interested in selling tape? We buy used tape and offer top cash for all types of tapes, cartridges, reel tape or whatever type of magnetic media you use." Such pitches are everywhere on the Internet and ever so tempting for companies looking to upgrade to new storage tapes or disks. But those who have bought or sold used tapes warn that doing so can put confidential data at risk.

Is enterprise VoIP (voice over IP) due for a security wakeup call or are the threats mostly exaggerated? It depends on who's talking.

From iris scanners to fingerprint readers and hand geometry, biometric technology promises to help alleviate identity theft, improve access control and keep the bad guys at bay. So what's taking it so long to get here, and why aren't more people excited? JENNIFER O'BRIEN reports.

There's something in the air these days at distribution centres everywhere. From the farmer's field to the warehouse floor, wireless technologies are transforming the way businesses manage inventory. Clipboards and manual data entry are going the way of the adding machine.

Rather than rest their fortunes on the favours of vendors, small-scale whitebox manufacturers around the country are carving out a niche with custom-built systems. And while they hardly rate a blip on analysts’ charts, many are building a healthy business based on upgrades, long warranties and excellent customer service.

If Scott Carson gets his way, the announcement “We have reached surfing altitude” might soon be as familiar to air travellers as safety demonstrations, packs of peanuts and stowing the tray in the upright and locked position.

The storage market continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, doubling just about every eight months according to IDC figures. But despite massive demand, revenues have flattened out as the cost per megabyte drops through the floor. With organisations of all sizes struggling to cope with increasingly complex storage environments, the best margins are to be made in helping customers deal with this data explosion through consultancy, integration, effective management and support. BRIAN CORRIGAN looks at opportunities and challenges in the storage services market.

A year after surviving a massive distributed denial-of-service attack, the Internet's root servers are better fortified against hacker activity, thanks to behind-the-scenes deployment of a routing technique known as Anycast, experts say.

Michael Dell is preaching again. On stage delivering a keynote at OracleWorld in San Francisco, he explained to the assembled masses how Dell, with the help of Oracle, will become a dominant player in the enterprise datacentre.

WLANs (Wireless LANs) are still in the experimental phase at most companies. Why? Because wireless security standards remain in flux. But a more obvious obstacle to wholehearted adoption is the lack of a compelling need for wireless in the average office, which already has a perfectly functional, wired LAN in place.

After a slow and often troublesome beginning, broadband is finally taking hold in Australia and opening up new opportunities for the channel for resale of DSL services and equipment. David Hellaby reports.

Storage resellers are moving away from boxes and into the provision of services as large vendors continue to erode margins and create channel conflict in the market.