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Internet Telephony: November 23, 2009 eNewsLetter
November 23, 2009

Trends and Technologies Dazzle at Interop

By Lance Whitney, Journalist, IT Consultant, Web Developer

What are the latest trends and technologies for the business world? Last week’s Interop (News - Alert) event in New York City provided a peek into some of the new products and services being marketed by different vendors. After spending a day at the conference, I came away with a few impressions.



 
One big trend was social networking for the enterprise. How do you take a Facebook (News - Alert) or Twitter and set that up within a company? Can businesses benefit from having their own internal social networks? A variety of vendors were promoting their own social networking products.
 
IBM (News - Alert) demoed its Lotus Connections product for me, which lets employees in a business set up profiles, post blogs, and set up communities to help them better collaborate with their co-workers. Though most companies might use this internally via their Intranets, an IBM rep told me that it can also be used by businesses for extranets. I have one client with an exclusive membership of several hundred people, and I could see this as a way of getting those members to interact with each other.
 
Another firm called SocialText also taps into the social networking area for business. SocialText offers a “Twitter-like” private network where internal folks can create personal home pages, post blogs and set up a Wiki to share common information.
 
There was also the usual array of vendors offering products to help you monitor and maintain your network and servers, always a critical need. One company, AdRem Software (News - Alert), sells a comprehensive tool called NetCrunch to help you map your network topology, monitor event logs, and keep track of network performance. Another firm Watch4net offers its own products to monitor networks and data centers.
 
Microsoft (News - Alert) was at Interop, complete with demos on its portfolio of products, including Windows 7, Windows Azure, and Silverlight. Highlighting each product was a series of 15-minute presentations, which I found quite useful and informative. I thought I knew a lot about Windows 7 at this point, but the Win 7 presentation gave me several new tips and tricks.
 
As a Web developer, I was definitely jazzed by the Silverlight presentation. As some of you may know, Silverlight gives designers and developers the ability to build video, animation, and other rich, interactive content into their web sites. Once thought of as an Adobe flash clone, Silverlight has become more prevalent across a variety of web sites. Currently on version 3, Silverlight 4 is currently in beta. I rely more on Adobe’s web and design tools, so I haven’t played with Silverlight yet. But the presentation definitely piqued my interest.
 
Microsoft Azure is the company’s cloud computing platform, designed to offer businesses storage, applications, and other resources beyond their own internal data centers. The Azure presentation was given by a software development firm that did not want the hassle of managing its own internal hosting center and so relied on Azure’s cloud-based services instead.
 
One item missing from Interop was the machine that started it all — the personal computer. Among system vendors, only HP had a tiny table devoted to a lone server. No Dell, Lenovo, or other prominent companies showed off their latest desktops or laptops. I was disappointed by this as I wanted to check out some of the new Windows 7 PCs. But I can’t say I was surprised since Interop is typically more about business services than client or end-user products.
 
A few other vendors caught my eye. A company called OoVoo provides video conferencing and chatting. It’s free for two people, or charged per plan or per use for three or more. A firm called Verio offers Web hosting, both directly and through resellers. Though I’m happy with my current Web host, I was impressed with Verio’s range of services and options. Another company called Synology sells network attached storage (NAS) devices for individuals as well as small and medium businesses. Again, I’m happy with my current NAS at home, but I liked the user friendliness of Synology’s storage hardware and software.
 
ENC Security sells a product called EncryptStick, encryption software for external USB drives that’s supposed to be stronger than Windows’ BitLocker app. Finally, YouRenew.com lets you get rid of your old computers, smartphones, and other hardware by helping you sell them or recycle them.
 
Though smaller and less impressive than previous years, this year’s Interop provided a decent overview of the latest industry trends. I’ll definitely be checking out some of the products and technologies I ran into at the conference.

Lance Whitney is a journalist, IT consultant, and Web Developer with almost 20 years of experience in the IT world. To read more of Lance's articles, please visit his columnist page

Edited by Marisa Torrieri

(source: http://mobile.tmcnet.com/topics/mobile/articles/69615-trends-technologies-dazzle-interop.htm)








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