Channel Insider Staff

Flash has been spreading across the Internet like animated kudzu in recent years, powering dynamic applications in everything from traditionally staid banking sites to digital photo tools. Earlier this year, Adobe made a big stir by acquiring Macromedia, and it has been argued that the purchase was so that Adobe could acquire Macromedia’s Flash. Flash, […]

In his 24-year career at Hewlett-Packard Co., Kevin Gilroy has served a number of masters, but none so well or notably as during his time as vice president of commercial channels. He stepped down from that role last year, and Sept. 30 he leaves the company all together. For 24 years Gilroy has had a […]

3Way Networks said on Tuesday that it has developed a short-range “3G” network for military applications. The hand-portable UMTS network, dubbed DBX-m, supports up to 100 user devices. The equipment packs a complete 3GPP Release 5 compliant system with radio network, switching and packet elements into a tiny 30x56x80cm ruggedised case, the company said. DBX-m […]

While Microsoft Corp. is preparing its midmarket marketing onslaught, the company is not forgoing its small-business push. Microsoft is expected to roll out a new Windows Midmarket Server bundle at a business summit for midmarket customers on Sept. 7. Although the midmarket server is not expected to ship until 2007, according to sources, Microsoft will […]

When Microsoft announced a year ago that it had decided to rip the next-generation Windows File System (WinFS) from Longhorn, many company watchers wrote off the feature as little more than vaporware. But it seems Microsoft didn’t simply shelve WinFS. According to sources close to the company, Microsoft just last week put the finishing touches […]

Small and midsize businesses spend little on security initiatives, but resellers willing to educate their customers can make that percentage grow, according to a recent survey by Forrester Research. The bad news is that the high spenders—about 28 percent of the total number of North American SMBs surveyed—spend between 2 percent and 4 percent of […]

VOIP provider Skype said Wednesday that it plans to open up its network to outside developers, allowing voice-over-IM functionality to be included inside a number of disparate applications. Skype will publish its APIs and open its SkypeNet network next week, when the company celebrates its second anniversary. A second application, SkypeNet, will offer presence functionality. […]

Vertical Communications was born a little less than a year ago, when the company’s leadership merged two longtime IP PBX players, Artisoft and Vertical Networks, in hopes of gaining critically needed traction in the crowded computer-based telephony field. In recent months, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company has been busy–both working to merge the best of Vertical […]

For many, August means summer vacations and watermelon, not desperate struggles with newly emerging viruses and other types of malware. For IT folk, however, summer heat and security threats go hand in hand. “August is a big month for viruses. We know when all the big viruses have gone out in the last fifteen years, […]

Allowing a security application to decide whether a piece of computer code is safe to run on the network is akin to asking the bouncer at hip Hollywood party to decide who should be allowed through the door. It’s just too hard for the enforcer to tell who belongs at the party and who doesn’t. […]

While the final hardware requirements for Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system won’t be made public until next summer, testers say the first beta release of the operating system is performing moderately well on existing PC hardware. Microsoft released to testers the first beta of Vista one week ago. As it has been doing for the […]

IBM Shrinks Suppliers: Round Two IBM has been offering lower margins in return for higher volumes to its staff augmentation contractors, a move that has caused some to leave the business. Keane Inc. last month dropped its staff augmentation work at IBM, citing a recent change in IBM’s direction. Another IT services provider, Ciber Inc., […]