Asia and Pacific: D-Link India develops low-cost Linux networking gear
By John Ribeiro, IDG News Service (Bangalore Bureau)
D-Link India Ltd. has developed low-cost, Linux-based networking equipment such as routers and firewalls, and VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) phones, specially designed for the requirements of emerging economies, according to an executive of the company.
The company's DPH-70 modem-based VOIP phone, for example, is designed for use over PSTN (public switched telephone network) lines in countries like India where the availability of broadband is not pervasive, said Kamalaksha Rama Naik, managing director of D-Link India, which is the Indian joint venture of Taipei-based D-Link Corp. Inc.
Besides being sold in India, the products will also be marketed through D-Link's overseas business units in 26 countries.
"Our focus is on developing products such as VOIP equipment, routers, integrated access devices, network security products and Wi-Fi equipment for the Indian market, and then take these products to similar markets," said Jandhyala Venkata Avadhanulu, director of software technology at D-Link India.
The company introduced this week its first products for the networking market, built around Linux and Intel Corp.'s XScale architecture. The DFW-100i is a hardware firewall solution that provides integrated NAT (network address translation) and VPN (virtual private network) support.
The hardware firewall includes a trusted LAN port, a WAN (wide area network) port that supports virtually all WAN firewall connection types and an independent DMZ (demilitarized zone) port to support local servers such as e-mail, Web and FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
D-Link India has also introduced its DRO-100i multiservice access router for branch offices, which offers routing, quality of service, firewall and VPN func-tions. The router offers a two channel VOIP as an optional plug-in, and connects to the WAN using a V.35 interface, and to the LAN with 10/100Mbps (megabits per second) Ethernet. A built-in ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) interface provides back-up to the WAN.
Pricing details are not yet available for the networking products, which are primarily targeted at SME (small and medium enterprises) and SOHO (small office, home office) users. "In terms of price-performance, these products will be a lot cheaper than those of our competitors," said Naik, adding that the extensive use of software, including Linux, in the products helped drive down product costs. (...)
Asia and Pacific: Panasonic unveils Blu-ray Disc/DVD video recorder
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service (Tokyo Bureau)
Matsushita Electric Indus-trial Co. Ltd. will launch a Blu-ray Disc recorder compatible with new dual-layer discs and existing recordable DVD formats at the end of July , the company said Wednesday.
The Panasonic DMR-E700BD can record 4.5 hours of digital satellite high-definition television (HDTV) when used with 50G-byte dual-layer Blu-ray Disc Rewritable format discs (...).
This extends to 6 hours for digital terrestrial HDTV and 9 hours for standard definition digital satellite TV. Analog television can be recorded for between 10.5 hours and 63 hours depending on the quality mode selected.
Single-layer Blu-ray Disc Rewritable discs with a capacity of 25G bytes are also supported and offer half the recording time, while DVD-RAM and DVD-R discs can be used to record analog television. Panasonic plans to launch both single-layer and dual-layer Blu-ray discs to coincide with the recorder's launch on July 31.
The new recorder will cost around US$2,780, the 50G-byte LM-BRM50 disc will cost US$70 and the 25G-byte LM-BRM25 disc will cost US$33, Matsushita said.
Despite the high cost of the player, Matsushita is hopeful it will find customers thanks to Japan's summer bonus season and the upcoming Olympic Games. (...)
America: JAVAONE: Sun's McNealy chides Microsoft, IBM, Red Hat
By Paul Krill, InfoWorld (US online)
Sun Microsystems Inc. Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy at the 2004 JavaOne conference in San Francisco extended an open invitation to Microsoft Corp. and Linux OS vendor Red Hat Inc. to join the Java Community Process (JCP), and also stressed that Sun, which has struggled financially lately, is not going away.
The JCP provides a procedure for proposing and amending the Java platform. While noting that Sun and Microsoft have been working behind the scenes to better cooperate as per a recent agreement, McNealy nonetheless urged both Microsoft and Red Hat to join the JCP.
"I encourage both of these organizations to come to class and to participate and to contribute," McNealy said. McNealy said Sun and Microsoft have been working on efforts such as directory interoperability, to enable users to log in to both .Net and Java environments simultaneously. An an-nouncement about phase 1 of interoperability between Sun and Microsoft is expected this summer, McNealy said. Microsoft is not participating in the JavaOne conference, though, according to Microsoft representatives.
Sun has been a good steward of Java, McNealy said, defending the company's position to not open up Java under an open source format. "Somebody's got to be in charge or nobody is," he said. He also criticized IBM Corp. for urging Sun to offer Java under an open source format, stressing IBM has been lacking in its own open source contributions while Sun has been a major contributor.
McNealy defended Sun's finan-cial position, saying the company has had 22 percent year-to-year growth in server unit volumes the past three quarters. Sun is not going away, he stressed. The company has about US$7.5 billion in cash in the bank and an installed base that has provided $131 billion in revenue to Sun to date.
Sun, however, posted a net loss of $760 million for its third fiscal quarter of 2004, which ended March 28, and posted a net loss of $125 million for the quarter before that.
America: JAVAONE: Nokia sees progress next year for mobile apps
By James Niccolai, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
Nokia Corp. expects work to be wrapped up early next year on a new Java standard that should make it easier to manage business and consumer applications on mobile phones and other wireless devices, Nokia's chief technology officer said Wednesday.
The standard, which is being developed by Nokia, Motorola Inc. and others, includes new management capabilities that should make it easier to deliver applications and software updates to mobile phones, troubleshoot problems remotely, and set access policies for corporate users, said Pertti Korhonen, Nokia's CTO, in a speech at JavaOne Wednesday.
For example, if a user wants to download a new game to his phone and doesn't have the right codec, the new Java standard will let developers package the codec and the game together and deliver them to a user at the same time, installing them while the phone is still running, Korhonen said.
The standard will also provide operators with more information about a user's phone, including the hardware profile, the sotware installed on it, and "live" statistics such as how much memory is being used. Operators will be able to find the cause of problems more easily and deliver software updates to fix them, Korhonen said.
Essentially, the new standard will provide operators and network managers with some of the same remote management features that are available today for PCs and servers, Korhonen said. "Your phone becomes just like any other node on the network," he said.
The capabilities are part of Java Specification Request 232, which is led by Nokia and Motorola and supported by Vodafone Group, NTT DoCoMo Inc., PalmSource Inc., IBM Corp. and others. (...)
America: Cool tools
By Keith Shaw, Network World (US)
The scoop: TuneCast II, from Belkin Corp., about $50.
What it does: Like a good Hollywood sequel, the TuneCast II takes the good parts from the first ver-sion and adds features to improve the product. The device connects to the headphone jack of any MP3 player and broadcasts the content to any nearby FM stereo receiver. This lets users listen to their digital music when they're in a car or via a stereo system.
Why it's cool: The device lets users choose the frequency at which to broadcast, as opposed to a choice of only four pre-set frequencies in the earlier model. This gives users more flexibility, on the off chance the lower frequencies on the radio dial are taken up by college radio or public radio stations. This feature also comes in handy when you're driving - when you're in range of a station, you can quickly change frequencies to continue listening to your music.
The scoop: 256MB + Wi-Fi card, from SanDisk Corp., about $130.
What it does: This secure digital I/O (SDIO) card combines 256M bytes of storage capacity with a Wi-Fi (802.11b) wireless LAN radio. The card works with Pocket PC 2002, 2003 and Windows Mobile 2003 handheld PDAs to provide wireless connectivity (and to give extra storage space). Security features such as Wired Equivalent Privacy, 802.1X, pre-shared keys and Wi-Fi Protected Access are supported.
Why it's cool: Combining the two technologies onto one SDIO card can save a lot of time as well as battery life. (SanDisk says combining the storage and wireless functions onto one card will help minimize battery drain.)
More importantly, the combination lets you store content on the card while maintaining a wireless connection, as opposed to switching between a wireless radio card and a storage memory card. Installation was relatively simple (we had to install drivers and software before inserting the card into the handheld computer), although we had to remember which operating system our handheld was currently using.
On the down side, the card won't work with SDIO card readers, so it becomes a bit more difficult to transfer data stored on this card. Still, if you're looking to add wireless to your pocket PC without sacrificing storage memory, this card is worth a look.
America: PeopleSoft offer is in self-defense, Ellison says
By Joris Evers, IDG News Service (San Francisco Bureau)
Oracle Corp. wants to buy PeopleSoft Inc. to survive in a consolidating and increasingly competitive business applications market, Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison testified in the U.S. government's case to block the proposed US$7.7 billion merger.
"There was a lot of consolida-tion going on around us and we wanted to be a survivor and a consolidator," Ellison said Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, in San Francisco. Oracle launched its hostile bid for rival PeopleSoft in June last year, days after PeopleSoft announced its plan to acquire J.D. Edwards & Co.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in February sued to block Oracle's merger plan, arguing it is anticompetitive as it would lead to price increases and limit customer choice to SAP AG and Oracle in the market for high-end financial management and human resource applications for large and complex enterprises.
Ellison, who appeared clad in a sharp gray suit with a white shirt and red tie, disagreed. Under in-creasing competition from SAP and with Microsoft Corp. seen entering the market, Oracle needs to improve its products and at the same time lower its prices to compete successfully, Ellison said.
"The only way we can increase our investment in engineering and at the same time lower our price is to increase our installed base," Ellison said. "If we wanted to grow, if we wanted to compete effectively, we had to acquire." Oracle looked at several takeover candidates and PeopleSoft topped its list, he said.
PeopleSoft has been fighting Oracle's offer, even though the Pleasanton, California-based company initiated merger talks with Oracle in 2002. At that time, Oracle and PeopleSoft could not reach an agreement on the structure of the combined businesses, Ellison said.
Even though Microsoft itself denies it has plans to sells business applications software to large enterprise, Ellison is convinced the Redmond, Washington-based giant will be a major player.
"I don't think Microsoft is going to be able to monopolize the business applications market ... I think it is going to be like the database market, where they gain share and gain share and ultimately become a formidable competitor," Ellison said.
"The second Microsoft enters a market, prices drop like a rock. Microsoft is always a low-cost provider, up to and including zero," Ellison said, offering the Web browser market as an example. (...)