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 TEST CENTER Solving the budget problem By Doug Dineley November 29, 2001 LESS HAS NEVER been more than in today's tight economy. Before the downturn, companies were bathing e-business initiatives in vats of cash. Now they're putting every IT dollar under a microscope, making sure each expenditure fulfills an urgent need and is more cost-effective than the last. We feel your pain. That's why, for our fourth roundup of hot new technologies, we've taken a more modest approach, focusing on sober and steady solutions that offer solid benefits and good value.
For Windows shops, there's no time like the present to start retiring Windows 95, 98, and Me from end-user desktops. Windows XP may not be a worthwhile upgrade from Windows 2000, but as a replacement for earlier versions, its substantial improvements in security, stability, and manageability could justify the expense. Of course, tough times also call for squeezing the most out of your current infrastructure. When it comes to making the most of the corporate network, no administrator should be without a network sniffer. A new breed of sniffer, notably WildPackets EtherPeek NX, decodes packets and analyzes them in real time, allowing network administrators to identify problems more quickly and keep traffic flowing smoothly. For stepwise improvement of your storage systems, consider Ultra160 SCSI. Ultra160 not only doubles the data-transfer rate of its predecessor, notching a blistering 160MBps, but it provides much-needed flexibility in mixing old devices with new. And as we discovered with the Adaptec 39160 controller and three Maxtor Atlas 10K III hard drives, Ultra160 can give you a big bang for every buck spent on boosting storage capacity and performance. And finally, we'll admit that 3-D videoconferencing isn't exactly an incremental improvement: It requires a significant investment in hardware or hefty service fees. But the quality and effectiveness of Teleportec's 3-D solution goes far beyond what 2-D can provide. If you want to eliminate the costs, hassles, and time involved in travel, and really preserve the effect of a face-to-face meeting, 3-D videoconferencing is the only substitute for being there. Return to our New Technologies 4 package. Doug Dineley (doug_dineley@infoworld.com) wants to know about the incremental upgrades that are hitting your sweet spot. SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
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