A quick study of the network industry could be enough to give you the blues.

To start, there’s IBM, otherwise known as Big Blue. Then there’s Windows’ dreaded blue screen of death and Microsoft’s annual BlueHat security briefings. And who can forget the Code Blue virus that struck in 2001?

The industry’s extended blue period saw the emergence of wireless security company Bluesocket, plus other outfits of past and present, such as BlueCat Networks, Blue Ridge, Blue Titan and BlueWave Networks.

North Bridge Venture Partners alone counts BlueNote Networks, BlueShift and Bluespec among its investments. The Bluetooth wireless technology has created a spectrum of colorful companies from BlueAnt to Bluetrek.

Not that the industry’s color palette is limited to blue and its association with loyalty and trustworthiness. There’s also France Telecom’s Orange mobile business, Google’s yellow enterprise search boxes, a rainbow of wiring color standards and Apple Computer products, and everything from the Black Hat Briefings for security experts to such new companies such as Code Green Networks.

Red’s popular, too. Novell has been called Small Red and Big Red for its Pantone 485-shaded logo and the boxes in which it shipped NetWare (not for its financial results in recent years). Ray Noorda, the company’s late CEO, used to tell a story about walking into a computer store and asking the clerk what color box stood out the best on the shelf.

The clerk said red, so Noorda went with that. The official story out of Novell today is that the company did a Christmastime launch in the mid-1980s and decided on red, which stuck.

Whitepapers

• The Trend from UNIX to Linux in SAP(r) Data Centers
• Secure Wireless Printing Options
• Network-Wide Change Management Visibility with Route Analytics
• Getting in Compliance With Government Data Regulations By Leveraging Online Security Technology
• How to Offer the Strongest SSL Encryption
• Maximizing Site Visitor Trust Using Extended Validation SSL

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Webcasts

• Managing the End User Experience-A Real World Example of Success
• Branch Office Trends and Best Practices
• Correlating granular network and application visibility
• Migrating to an MPLS-Based Network
• Round Table Webcast with Forrester Research
• Best Practices for Deploying WAN Optimization for Disaster Recovery

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Special Reports

• WAN Optimization: The Ultimate No Brainer
• Ehternet Services: WAN options mature
• Keeping Spam at Bay
• Network World Executive Guide: The Virtualization Equation
• Application Performance Management Executive Guide
• Executive Guide: Building a Service Oriented Architecture

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