Here is this week's Editors' Choice; look for Readers' Choice later this week.
EDITORS’ CHOICE
From the front page of Network World
Microsoft-Novell pact: who wins . . . who loses
The business and technology partnership unveiled this week by Microsoft and Novell is a multi-dimensional union that reaches deep into the open source community, slaps at rivals of both vendors and could potentially aid Microsoft in its European Union lawsuit.
LAN switching’s most burning questions
Asphalt and copper pipes might be boring, but without them, there’s no highway system or running water. It’s similar with LAN switching, a sometimes taken-for-granted technology without which there is no enterprise network. With this in mind, we take a close look at the state – and future – of LAN switching by addressing six burning questions.
Of VPNs and peer-to-peer SIP: IETF chair speaks out
Some of the Internet’s greatest technical minds will gather next week in San Diego to debate how best to plug security holes and design new services for the Internet. More than 1,200 network engineers are expected to attend the Internet Engineering Task Force’s 67th meeting. Network World Senior Editor Carolyn Duffy Marsan interviewed IETF chairman Brian Carpenter, a distinguished engineer with IBM, about the standards-body’s latest efforts. Here are excerpts from their conversation.
In depth
Get ready for wireless convergence
Today, mobile business users navigate a patchwork of wireless networks. Most connections must be set up, torn down and reinitiated when users cross Wi-Fi and cellular network boundaries.
XAML accelerates app development
Extensible Application Markup Language is the user interface markup language for the Windows Presentation Foundation, one of the pillars of the Microsoft .Net framework. The concept is similar to the combination of HTML and JavaScript used in Web applications, but on a much larger scale.
Hit the books if you want to become an IT leader. The Society for Information Management has announced the 2007 book list for its Regional Leadership Forum.
Review
Aruba conquers challenge of Wi-Fi scalability
Every Wi-Fi vendor talks in their marketing material about scaling up for enterprise service, but how many actually walk the walk? We found out after conducting our largest Wi-Fi test ever.
From the blogs and forums
Adam Gaffin collects some opinions on the Novell/Microsoft deal. Mark Gibbs wonders why manufacturers of today’s electronic marvels so rarely seem to take the needs of the disabled and elderly into account. He also marvels at spammers in the IT biz. Paul McNamara discusses another federal attempt to protect online consumers. The Alpha Doggs take a look at a new program by Tim Berners-Lee and others to train students to build a better Web. James Gaskin reminds us that just because you can buy Vista-ready PCs doesn’t mean Vista is, in fact, ready. Layer 8 tells us about Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment (i.e., UTube) suing YouTube.
How to
Ron Nutter helps a user decide whether a T-1 backup for his fractional DS3 is worth the money. In our latest Insider Threat column, Ratinder Paul Singh Ahuja helps a user figure out how to spot intellectual property that might be going through the firewall.
Video
Making distance learning useful
What is “rapid e-learning” and how can it benefit the distribution of knowledge in your company? Ted Cocheu, CEO of Altus Learning Systems, explains on this week’s Network World Hot Seat.
More news
Simula airs open source bundle
Part incubator, part commercial services provider, Simula Labs this week is set to debut a bundle of software and services that industry watchers say could help enterprise IT shops shore up their open source deployments.
IBM delivers free management dashboard for virtual, physical resources
IBM today is making available a free software download that the company says can help enterprise IT managers configure, administer and monitor virtual and physical resources across heterogeneous server environments.
Storage grid? Storage cluster? . . . Do definitions matter
Grid storage and storage clusters – are the terms interchangeable? They could be if you ask users and industry analysts who participated in several panels at Storage Networking World this week.
Average data breach costs companies $5 million
Companies spent nearly $5 million on average, and 30% more, this year than in 2005, to recover when corporate data was lost or stolen, according to a new study from the Poneman Institute.
Spam that delivers a pink slip
Last week, a handful of employees at Dekalb Medical Center in Decatur, Ga., received e-mails saying they were being laid off. The subject line read ‘Urgent employment issue,’ and the sender listed on the message was at dekalb.org, which is the domain the medical center uses. The e-mail contained a link to a Web site that claimed to offer career-counseling information.
Allied Telesis bolsters 10G switch family
Allied Telesis this week unveiled a new series 10G Ethernet wring closet switches, promising customers high port density and fast uplink connections, but at a lower cost than its larger enterprise switch competitors.
Who’s in the money? Would you believe telecom start-ups?
As reported last week, the big news that came out of the third quarter MoneyTree survey – produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association based on data from Thomson Financial – is that a few niches within the telecom sector saw significant interest from investors. Four of the Top 10 deals sealed in the third quarter were with telecom companies.
