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2003 Archive | 2004 Archive | 2005 Archive | 2006 Archive | 2007 Archive | DATE  PRODUCT  SCORE  BOTTOM LINE 10/01/2007 Microsoft Silverlight 1.0 8.4 Very Good Silverlight 1.0 has a small footprint and is useful for streaming audio and video and simple animations on Web sites, but its use of JavaScript limits its performance for applications that require significant client-side computations. Silverlight 1.1 has higher performance and supports compiled .Net languages, at the expense of a larger footprint. Developers familiar with Windows Presentation Foundation will find Silverlight easy to learn. Excellent development and design tools will make building Silverlight applications go quickly, as early adopters have seen. >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 09/27/2007 Sun Blade 6000 8.5 Very Good As the little brother to the Sun Blade 8000 series, the 6000 series offers plenty of expansion, and more blade options than any other blade system. With SAS/SATA SFF disk support, optional RAID 0,1,5,10 on the Intel blades, CompactFlash support, and a well-designed expansion card layout, it’s a solid system for a nice price. >> Full review >> Go to Sun Microsystems' Web site Corporate address: 4150 Network Circle Santa Clara,CA US 95054 Main phone no. 800-555-9SUN 09/24/2007 Thinstall Virtualization Suite 3.2 7.1 Good Bottom Line: Thinstall continues to deliver a no-frills solution that makes the process of packaging and deploying virtualized applications almost trivially simple. The completely self-contained virtualization environment requires no client agent or back-end server, and it delivers excellent runtime performance. However, the acquisition of competitors Softricity and Altiris has left Thinstall as the lone pioneer in a rapidly maturing market. Previously overlooked deficiencies, like the lack of client-side caching and the inability to stream over non-SMB connection types, will become magnified in the light of this newly competitive landscape. >> Full review >> Go to Thinstall's Web site Corporate address: 22 Battery Street, Suite 703 San Francisco,CA US 94111 Main phone no. (800) 736 6514 09/24/2007 Microsoft SoftGrid 4.2 7.4 Good SoftGrid has changed little since our previous review. Strong points are tight integration with Active Directory and a well-optimized streaming model. However, it still suffers from usability quirks and an overly complex sequencing process, and it lacks support for headless services. Nevertheless, Microsoft’s acquisition of SoftGrid, and its decision to de-couple the client from the server, point to an important role for the underlying technology in future Microsoft products and services. >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 09/20/2007 Vontu 7 8.8 Excellent Vontu 7 remains adept at pinpointing potentially costly security breaches, providing thorough data-leak protection. Vontu Enforce provides a central spot for policy creation and management, incident workflow, and reporting. It integrates seamlessly Vontu's five modules, which collectively cover data at rest, data in motion, and now with the new Endpoint Monitor, data at end points. All that's missing is the capability of blocking at the end point, which will be possible with Version 8. >> Full review >> Go to Vontu's Web site Corporate address: One California St. Suite 1500 San Francisco,CA US 94111 Main phone no. 415-364-8100 09/17/2007 Adaptec Snap Server 720i 8.6 Very Good The Snap Server 720i combines good administration tools, easy iSCSI connectivity, tight integration with Microsoft Windows, a mirroring capability that larger arrays will envy, and scalability that should match even the fastest growing repositories. All in a compact, 1U format at a starting price that is hard to beat. It's an offer that many SMBs will find hard to resist. >> Full review >> Go to Adaptec's Web site Corporate address: 691 South Milpitas Blvd. Milpitas,CA US 95035 Main phone no. 408-945-8600 09/12/2007 Office Project 2007 and Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 7.2 Good Project Server 2007 is not only a worthwhile upgrade to Project Server 2003 from a stand-alone perspective, it also has the capability to change how teams work and get managed when used in combination with SharePoint Server 2007. There's a definite learning curve here for server administrators as well as a meaty planning process, but the benefits of that work can be huge. >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 09/12/2007 Office Project 2007 and Microsoft Office Project Server 2007 7.2 Good Project Server 2007 is not only a worthwhile upgrade to Project Server 2003 from a stand-alone perspective, it also has the capability to change how teams work and get managed when used in combination with SharePoint Server 2007. There's a definite learning curve here for server administrators as well as a meaty planning process, but the benefits of that work can be huge. >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 09/10/2007 Dell PowerVault MD3000i 8.4 Very Good The MD3000i is an iSCSI array that promises more deployment flexibility and easier sharing across multiple servers than the MD3000, its direct-attached sibling. Unfortunately, SATA drives are not yet available in the MD3000i, severely limiting the maximum capacity of the enclosure and driving up the cost of expansion. Nevertheless, the MD3000i's good management and reliability features and its competitive price will make it an appealing choice when Dell unleashes the SATA options later this year. >> Full review >> Go to Dell's Web site Corporate address: 1 Dell Way Round Rock,TX US 78682 Main phone no. 800-274-3355 09/10/2007 Network Appliance FAS2020 8.8 Excellent A unique characteristic of NetApp is that its storage arrays all run the same ONTAP OS and the same applications, which enables admins to upgrade to higher-performance, higher-capacity systems without the learning curve, and often reusing the same drives. The FAS2020 is no exception, and its complemented by a rich portfolio of applications, rock-solid reliability, plenty of bandwidth to connect FC and Ethernet networks, and an abundance of management tools. All of this does come at a premium price, though. >> Full review >> Go to Network Appliance's Web site Corporate address: 495 East Java Dr. Sunnyvale,CA US 94089 Main phone no. 408-822-6000 09/07/2007 Shunra Virtual Enterprise (VE) 5.0 8.6 Very Good Anyone who needs to test enterprise-wide applications over varying conditions should give the Shunra VE WAN emulation suite a good, hard look. It is expensive but provides the tools needed to construct realistic test scenarios and capture all relevant data about the traffic over the WAN. The bundled applications -- VE Modeler, VE Reporter, VE Transaction Manager, and VE Analyzer -- work together to help automate testing and determine how varying WAN conditions can affect network performance. >> Full review >> Go to Shunra Software's Web site Corporate address: 1375 Broadway, 14th Floor New York,NY US 10018 Main phone no. 877-474-8672 09/06/2007 eXpresso 1.0 8.5 Very Good eXpresso, a secure SaaS, enables workers to quickly create communities for sharing Microsoft Excel files. Workgroup features go beyond those available with document management systems. These unusual capabilities include change alerts, group editing with instant messaging, audit trails for regulatory compliance, and side-by-side comparison of changes. Notably, members control what edits others can make, down to the cell level. >> Full review >> Go to eXpresso's Web site Corporate address: 4600 Bohannon Drive, Suite 230 Menlo Park,CA US 94025 Main phone no. 650-328-9798 09/04/2007 AT&T 8525 (HTC Hermes) 6.3 Fair The AT&T 8525 (HTC Hermes) is a fatter, faster version of the T-Mobile Wing, but in a silvertone case. The thumbwheel, macro-focus camera, and infrared are nice touches, but the 8525 is an old-fashioned brick that's uncomfortable to hold. At present, AT&T is still shipping the 8525 with Windows Mobile 5, and a promised update to Windows Mobile 6 Professional is not available. >> Full review >> Go to AT&T's Web site Corporate address: One AT&T Way Bedminster,NJ US 07921 Main phone no. 908-221-2000 09/04/2007 HTC Advantage X7501 8.4 Very Good Finally, a Windows Mobile device that almost makes you want to leave your notebook PC at home. The X7501 is an absolute beauty, with a sharp five-inch display, a snap-on QWERTY keyboard, fast Wi-Fi, an 8GB microdrive, and video output. The X7501 is not cheap, but it'll make you and everyone who sees you with it forget all about the iPhone. >> Full review >> Go to HTC America's Web site Corporate address: 13920 SE Eastgate Way Suite 400 Bellevue,WA US 98005 Main phone no. 425-861-9174 09/04/2007 BlackBerry 8300 (Curve) 7.4 Good BlackBerry 8300 (Curve) kicks off a new trend toward more relaxed, lifestyle-friendly devices for individuals. Curve is a full BlackBerry with a QWERTY keyboard and trackball, but in a smaller, more shapely package with Bluetooth stereo audio, a two-megapixel still camera with light, and Windows software for converting video and audio for playback on the device. >> Full review >> Go to Research In Motion (RIM)'s Web site Corporate address: 295 Phillip St. Waterloo,Ontario CA N2L 3W8 Main phone no. 519-888-7465 09/04/2007 T-Mobile Wing (HTC Herald) 8.1 Very Good T-Mobile Wing, a Windows Mobile 6 Professional handset, is an attractive yet full-featured device. Windows Mobile 6 Professional, with Mobile Office 2007, really shines on Wing, which has a roomy slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a screen that responds to stylus and fingertip. T-Mobile lacks 3G coverage, but Wing's Wi-Fi kicks in on your LAN and wherever there's a T-Mobile Hotspot. >> Full review >> Go to T-Mobile USA's Web site Corporate address: Bellevue,WA US 98015 Main phone no. 800-937-8997 09/04/2007 Nokia E65 8.1 Very Good Would Nokia's E61i be your dream handset if it weren't so big? The E65 is essentially the E61i done as a handsome executive phone with a slide-out numeric keypad. The E65 is expensive for a phone, and Nokia didn't do as well as I'd hoped at adapting the 12-key keyboard to use in Web apps. Still, the E65 is a rare, pocketable, boardroom-compatible enterprise handset that will integrate with any solution built around Nokia's E61i or comparable QWERTY handset. >> Full review >> Go to Nokia's Web site Corporate address: 6000 Connection Dr. Irving,TX US 75039 Main phone no. 972-894-5000 09/04/2007 Nokia E61i 8.3 Very Good Nokia’s E61i is an exceptional QWERTY handset nearly overloaded with connectivity, customizability, and out-of-the-box applications. VoIP, hands and eyes-free operation, Office document editing, and an oversized display that’s readable even in direct sunlight top this handset’s long list of distinguishing features. >> Full review >> Go to Nokia's Web site Corporate address: 6000 Connection Dr. Irving,TX US 75039 Main phone no. 972-894-5000 09/04/2007 BlackBerry 8800 8.0 Very Good The BlackBerry 8800 is already established as the flagship BlackBerry handset on GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks. This rich and easy-to-use device stands apart for its trackball, comfortable shape, perfected keyboard, built-in GPS with standard navigation software, and unparalleled battery life supporting 22 days standby on a single charge. >> Full review >> Go to Research In Motion (RIM)'s Web site Corporate address: 295 Phillip St. Waterloo,Ontario CA N2L 3W8 Main phone no. 519-888-7465 09/03/2007 null 7.3 Very Good SignaCert's Enterprise Trust Server is a unique product for maintaining system consistency and for detecting malicious file modifications. Improvement over traditional host-based IDSes because its 80 million file signature database can determine legitimate files on the starting snapshot. Cannot detect all system changes and needs a client-side GUI. >> Full review >> Go to SignaCert's Web site Corporate address: 707 SW Washington Street, 7th Floor Portland,OR US 97205 Main phone no. 503.227.2207 08/30/2007 Seagate Momentus 5400 FDE.2 8.5 Very Good The Momentus had to concede to its Hitachi rival the primacy in capacity and performance, but when security was set, its behavior was irreproachable, both inside the ASI laptop and when exposed to simulated attacks on other machines. The security suite from Wave systems is a perfect match for this security-conscious drive. >> Full review >> Go to Seagate Technology's Web site Corporate address: 920 Disc Dr. Scotts Valley,CA US 95066 Main phone no. 831-438-6550 08/30/2007 Hitachi Travelstar 7K200 8.7 Excellent With an advantage of 1800 RPMs, 33 percent more than the Momentus, and 80GB more capacity, the Travelstar 7K200 had an easy win in those two areas. However, not having a security suite as an ally put the drive at some disadvantage. No wonder Hitachi won't sell it as a bare unit. Nevertheless, once you set a strong password, this is another drive that won't be easy to crack -- and it will be even more impenetrable when it 's paired with a security software companion. >> Full review >> Go to Hitachi Global Storage Technologies' Web site Corporate address: 3403 Yerba Buena Road San Jose,CA US 95135 Main phone no. 800.801.4618 08/27/2007 InfoPath 2007 and Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 7.3 Good InfoPath 2007 and SharePoint 2007 Enterprise or Forms Server 2007 have enough combined power to truly revolutionize how your company handles forms. From content to display capabilities, the duo handles it all and adds security and business intelligence into the mix to boot >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 08/23/2007 IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8 0.0 Preview IBM Lotus has delivered a significant upgrade that existing customers will embrace. Compared with competitors (such as Microsoft’s unified communications and collaboration platform), Lotus Notes and Domino 8 appear less complicated for IT staff to manage and develop solutions around, providing opportunities for server consolidation while integrating various collaboration capabilities in a rich Web 2.0-style client. Notes and Domino 8 also provide important multi-platform support. >> Full review >> Go to IBM's Web site Corporate address: 1133 Westchester Ave. White Plains,NY US 10604 Main phone no. 800-426-4968 08/22/2007 Clearswift MIMEsweeper Web Appliance ENW10 Version 1.1 8.3 Very Good Clearswift's MIMEsweeper Web Appliance offers plug-and-play protection against Web-born threats including viruses buried in downloaded Office and PDF docs, compressed archives, executables, and multimedia files. Virus and malware traps were effective in our tests, and the URL filtering database is well-stocked to jumpstart efforts. New lexical sift options help trap troublesome communications before they can bite you. MIMEsweeper does not inspect HTTPS streams, and admin delegation could be more granular. >> Full review >> Go to Clearswift's Web site Corporate address: 303 Twin Dolphin Dr. 6th Floor Redwood City,CA US 94065 Main phone no. 800-982-6109 08/20/2007 Microsoft Office Groove Server 2007 7.0 Good Office Groove Server 2007 is a platform meant to ease the IT burden of managing 100 or more Office Groove 2007 users. Covering management security and even file transfers as well as communication with back-end line-of-business apps via Web Services, this is one Office Server package that really doesn’t need SharePoint >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 08/16/2007 Spotwave Z1900 8.2 Very Good The Spotwave Z1900 is an effective cell-phone repeater that boosts signals in the 1900MHz band from marginal to superb. Surveying your site for the best reception point is the hardest part of installation: If you can't find somewhere on your premises with at least a bar or two of signal strength, then the Z1900 isn't going to be able to help you. >> Full review >> Go to Spotwave's Web site Corporate address: 1 Hines Road, Suite 204 Ottawa, ON K2K3C7 , CA Main phone no. 613-591-1662 08/13/2007 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 7.4 Good Office SharePoint Server 2007 is a platform that offers amazing new potential to Microsoft Office users, and it does so without loads of new training for IT. However, the platform is so powerful, that administrators will need to be careful when planning architecture and hardware distribution as well as when and in what order they’ll roll out certain features >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 08/08/2007 MB Technologies InfiView 1.0 7.4 Good Shops that already develop AJAX applications with Bindows will love the interactive graphical capabilities that InfiView provides. Developers will find that they can fairly quickly create applications that are either minor variations of what the InfiView wizard can produce or that are similar to existing samples. For other applications, InfiView will require a fairly steep learning curve -- plus they'll suffer relatively few development tools. >> Full review >> Go to MB Technologies' Web site Corporate address: 301 Park Drive Warner Robins,GA US 31088 Main phone no. 866-721-5387 08/06/2007 Curl 5.0 8.6 Very Good Curl has several attractive features as an RIA environment, including excellent performance, strong graphics support, and good data handling. Although the Curl language, library, and tools are not hard to learn, they will be new to most programmers. Curl should be on most companies' RIA evaluation lists. >> Full review >> Go to Curl's Web site Corporate address: One Cambridge Center, 10th Floor Cambridge,MA US 02142-1612 Main phone no. 617-761-1200 07/30/2007 Bluespring BPM Suite 7.6 Good For midtier businesses invested in newer Microsoft-driven solutions such as SharePoint Server and Office, Bluespring's BPM suite offers a good foundation for optimizing human-centric, document-laden operations. Although not without limitations, such as poor engine-administration tools and a limited library, the current toolset can be quickly implemented and will perform well in departmental rollouts. >> Full review >> Go to Bluespring Software's Web site Corporate address: 200 West Fourth St. Sixth Floor Cincinnati,OH US 45202 Main phone no. 513-618-2132 07/26/2007 Tridion R5 9.3 Excellent Tridion R5 gets high grades all-around as a Web CMS. The core Content Manager's simple interfaces let end-users easily contribute content and manage Web sites. Structured XML content is then reused for, say, sites in different languages and adapted for alternate functions, including e-mail campaigns and print. This system's Audience Manager lets you gather information about visitors and personalize content to their interests. The system, additionally, builds in strong analytics and integrates with other enterprise systems. >> Full review >> Go to Tridion's Web site Corporate address: 1440 Broadway 23rd floor New York,NY US 10018 Main phone no. 866-833-0848 07/23/2007 Polycom SoundStation IP 4000 8.7 Excellent The SoundStation IP 4000 is Polycom's newest SIP-compatibly "boomerang" conference room speakerphone. It runs the same base firmware as other phones in the Polycom line, so integrates perfectly into a Polycom IP phone infrastructure. This may be the best conference room speakerphone on the market, analog or digital. >> Full review >> Go to Polycom's Web site Corporate address: 4750 Willow Rd. Pleasanton,CA US 94588 Main phone no. 800-765-9266 07/23/2007 Polycom SoundPoint IP 650 8.8 Excellent The Polyom SoundPoint IP 650 executive VoIP phone is an attractive and compelling SIP phone with plenty of high-end features. It looks at home on any desk, voice quality is excellent, and it worked flawlessly with Asterisk in the test lab. The ringtones are pretty terrible, but you can add your own. All in all, a good deal for the price. >> Full review >> Go to Polycom's Web site Corporate address: 4750 Willow Rd. Pleasanton,CA US 94588 Main phone no. 800-765-9266 07/23/2007 SpectraLink NetLink e340 7.4 Good Wi-Fi VoIP phones generally disappoint, but the SpectraLink e340 comes close to hitting the mark. It has good battery life, reasonably clear audio, and it even survived a night in the rain. The required proxy server is somewhat of a nuisance, but adds QoS tuning to significantly improve call quality and boost the overall appeal. At $449 per phone, the e340 is not for a tight budget, however. >> Full review >> Go to SpectraLink's Web site Corporate address: 5755 Central Ave. Boulder,CO US 80301 Main phone no. 800-676-5465 07/19/2007 Agitar Software AgitarOne 8.1 Very Good AgitarOne is a capable, useful, and well-integrated tool that generates unit tests automatically, runs additional tests in the background, enforces code rules, and reports the results in an elegant dashboard format. However, this first release (despite the version number) is fragile in several ways, and it relies on documentation of insufficient quality. >> Full review >> Go to Agitar Software's Web site Corporate address: 450 National Avenue, Suite A Mountain View,CA US 94043 Main phone no. 650-694-3000 07/16/2007 APC InfraStruXure NetworkAir PA4000 8.1 Very Good APC’s portable air-cooled unit is just that: cold air on wheels. For very small server rooms, one of these units may be the only AC necessary. In large datacenters, the PA could serve as a precision cooling solution and definitely as a backup to the main systems. Don't expect tremendous cooling output, however. The 4kW rated capacity just isn’t enough to handle many situations. >> Full review >> Go to American Power Conversion (APC)'s Web site Corporate address: 132 Fairgrounds Rd. W. Kingston,RI US 02892 Main phone no. 800-788-2208 07/16/2007 APC InfraStruXure InRow RC (ACRC100) 8.8 Excellent APC’s water-cooled in-row units pump out plenty of cold air, and they handle heat rejection very well. They’re cheap as individual units, but the overall installation will cost significantly more, as a large water chiller, a water distribution unit, and extensive piping is required. The RC units deliver roughly twice the cooling output of the SC units. In short, they are much more efficient and cheaper to operate than large whole-room units. >> Full review >> Go to American Power Conversion (APC)'s Web site Corporate address: 132 Fairgrounds Rd. W. Kingston,RI US 02892 Main phone no. 800-788-2208 07/16/2007 APC InfraStruXure InRow SC (ACSC100) 8.5 Very Good APC’s air-cooling in-row systems are different than most other cooling solutions. Situated between equipment racks, they push cold air directly in front of the racks, automatically adjusting cooling levels depending on feedback from a temperature sensor. They can be temperamental at times, especially when dealing with sudden heat loads, but overall they perform very well, and they are inexpensive and easy to install. >> Full review >> Go to American Power Conversion (APC)'s Web site Corporate address: 132 Fairgrounds Rd. W. Kingston,RI US 02892 Main phone no. 800-788-2208 07/13/2007 ZyXel ZyWall SSL 10 VPN 8.2 Very Good The ZyWall SSL 10 packs a lot of enterprise-worthy features into an inexpensive appliance. Setup wasn't as intuitive as I would've expected, but once configured, the Java client worked well on my test PCs. The ZyWall exposed my servers and resources, and allowed metered access in to my test network. I also liked the inclusion of end-point policy enforcement. At this price point, it's hard to ping it for any missing features, but logging and reporting are badly underpowered. >> Full review >> Go to Zyxel Communications' Web site Corporate address: 1130 North Miller St. Anaheim,CA US 92806 Main phone no. 800-255-4101 07/12/2007 Silver Peak NX-5500 8.9 Excellent Silver Peak's NX-5500 provides some of the best performance increases tested to date with a wide range of supported applications and protocols. Its ability to both optimize and cache UDP traffic is a major plus for enterprises doing branch office-to-datacenter replication or video streaming. Setup and configuration are straightforward, and reporting and monitoring provide a good view into the overall health of the system. >> Full review >> Go to Silver Peak Systems' Web site Corporate address: 441 Logue Avenue Mountain View,CA US 94043 Main phone no. 888-598-7325 07/10/2007 Apple iPhone 4.9 Fair Consumers looking for a gadget fix and who don’t mind paying $60/month for it will be delighted by the iPhone, which is effectively a heavenly widescreen, Wi-Fi iPod with PDA and browser functionality. But for professionals, once you get your feet off your desk and get down to business, excitement gives way to deep disappointment. iPhone is trounced in professional features, including 3G, VOIP, push to talk, IM, voice dialing, and much more, by all comers within $200 of its price range. And because it's a closed platform in the iPod tradition, these absent features can't be added by creative third parties. Apple and AT&T ruined iPhone for the professional handset market. >> Full review >> Go to Apple's Web site Corporate address: 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 408-996-1010 07/09/2007 XenSource XenEnterprise 3.2 7.0 Good XenEnterprise is on its way to becoming an enterprise-grade virtualization platform, but it isn't there yet. The foundation looks good, but needs server farming capabilities, as well as support for centralized storage, iSCSI SANs, 64-bit VMs, and VM migration. Much of this is promised for later in 2007, and will be needed for XenSource to compete at the enterprise level. >> Full review >> Go to XenSource's Web site Corporate address: 2300 Geng Road Suite 250 Palo Alto,CA US 94303 Main phone no. 650.-798-5900 07/09/2007 Virtual Iron Enterprise Edition 3.7.1 7.7 Good Virtual Iron Enterprise offers high-end virtual server management features without the high-end price, but it has a few rough spots and can be fragile in places. When treated carefully, it’s a stable and scalable cross-platform virtualization solution with VM migration, load-balancing, and iSCSI SAN support. The future looks bright for this Xen-based solution. >> Full review >> Go to Virtual Iron Software's Web site Corporate address: 900 Chelmsford Street Tower I, Floor 2 Lowell,MA US 01851 Main phone no. (978) 849-1200 07/05/2007 iQstor iQ2880 8.7 Excellent The iQstor iQ2880 can't match top-flight competitors feature for feature, but it delivers excellent bang for the buck, covering the essentials – including replication, mirroring, iSCSI support, virtualization, and automated capacity growth – at less than half the price of Compellent or Xiotech. In addition, it offers excellent scalability and a solid, easy-to-use management interface. >> Full review >> Go to iQstor Networks' Web site Corporate address: 2001 Corporate Center Dr. Newbury Park,CA US 91320 Main phone no. 805-376-1000 07/05/2007 iQstor iQ2880 8.7 Excellent The iQstor iQ2880 can't match top-flight competitors feature for feature, but it delivers excellent bang for the buck, covering the essentials – including replication, mirroring, iSCSI support, virtualization, and automated capacity growth – at less than half the price of Compellent or Xiotech. In addition, it offers excellent scalability and a solid, easy-to-use management interface. >> Full review 07/05/2007 Xiotech Magnitude 3D 3000e 8.9 Excellent The Xiotech 3D system combines multiple purpose-built appliances, adding some complexity but also additional capability, including support for heterogeneous storage, continuous data protection, and compression, encryption, and deduplication of WAN traffic for remote replication. The TimeScale appliance supports the use of storage from any vendor, and a solid state disk option offers the highest possible performance, albeit at a price. >> Full review >> Go to Xiotech's Web site Corporate address: 6455 Flying Cloud Dr. Eden Prairie,MN US 55344 Main phone no. 866-472-6764 07/05/2007 Compellent Storage Center 3.5 9.1 Excellent The Compellent Storage Center is the best SAN we've tested, with the broadest feature set and the greatest ease of use. Highlights include the automated data migration capability, which makes the best use of the most expensive storage, as well as superb scalability and excellent support, all at a very competitive price. This system compares favorably with top-tier systems costing much more. >> Full review >> Go to Compellent Technologies' Web site Corporate address: 7625 Smetana Lane Eden Prairie,MN US 55344 Main phone no. 952-294-3300 06/28/2007 BeyondTrust Privilege Manager 3.0 9.3 Excellent If you're a Windows shop that insists on the insecure practice of granting users Administrator privileges so they can install software and make configuration changes, BeyondTrust Privilege Manager 3.0 is a great solution for keeping their activities in check. It not only boasts granular controls for defining elevated tasks, it also integrates well with Active Directory. The only real drawback is the pricing model. >> Full review >> Go to BeyondTrust's Web site Corporate address: 125 Brewery Lane, Bldg. 320 Portsmouth,NH US 03801 Main phone no. 603-610-4250 06/27/2007 PGP NetShare v.9.6 8.4 Very Good PGP NetShare is a solid encryption product, with a friendly GUI and useful wizards, and it does a good job of protecting folders and files. However, most of its enterprise functionality -- such as sharing encryption keys across media sources -- is provided only when NetShare is installed with PGP Universal Server. >> Full review >> Go to PGP's Web site Corporate address: 3460 West Bayshore Rd. Palo Alto,CA US 94303 Main phone no. 650-319-9000 06/27/2007 Apple Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) 0.0 Preview Just scratching the surface, key Leopard features include an Xray profiling tool that captures what's going on in your code and organizes the results in an easy timeline-based GUI view. Core Animation puts images and visual media elements in coordinated motion. Apple’s reconstructed Xcode 3.0 developer toolset, Objective-C 2.0 language, and Cocoa and other object-oriented frameworks define the path to creating native Mac applications. Darwin becomes a proper 64-bit Unix in the Solaris tradition. Dashcode makes Dashboard widgets serious business with a dedicated design and JavaScript debugging environment. Ruby on Rails provides a simple and robust Web application environment. >> Full review >> Go to Apple's Web site Corporate address: 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 408-996-1010 06/26/2007 Tablus Content Sentinel 3.0.2 8.6 Very Good Content Sentinel 3.0, a part of Tablus' data-protection suite, introduces grid processing to scan thousands of systems simultaneously for private data or unprotected intellectual property. The distributed approach, temporary agents, and low network impact make this solution effective for organizations with content spread among many remote offices. Twenty-five new Expert Content Blades cover most varieties of confidential information without any policy tuning, thus helping organizations more easily comply with regulations. >> Full review >> Go to Tablus' Web site Corporate address: 155 Bovet Road, Suite 610 San Mateo,CA US 94402 Main phone no. (650) 572-1515 06/21/2007 NextPage 2 Document Retention 8.8 Excellent NextPage 2 Document Retention is a distributed document management tool that will actually get used. Once installed, NextPage 2 Document Retention agents unobtrusively observe document actions on each user’s machine to keep track of documents as they move around the network. Its light touch will dovetail nicely into established workflows. >> Full review >> Go to NextPage's Web site Corporate address: 13997 South Minuteman Dr. Draper,UT US 84020 Main phone no. 801-748-4400 06/21/2007 Xythos Enterprise Document Management Suite 8.5 Very Good An easy-to-use and easy-to-deploy Web-based document management solution, Xythos also provides content compliance that meets U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.2 standards. This system has broad document and file management, including check-in/check-out, version control, workflow, plus document retention and classification. Records management offers extensive retention rules, while compliance staff can audit all actions. >> Full review >> Go to Xythos Software's Web site Corporate address: One Bush St. Suite 600 San Francisco,CA US 94104 Main phone no. 415-248-3800 06/15/2007 Apple Mac OS X v10.5 ("Leopard") 0.0 Preview Apple’s reconstructed Xcode 3.0 developer toolset, Objective-C 2.0 language, and Cocoa and other object-oriented frameworks define the path to creating native Mac applications. Xcode 3.0 uses the code editor as the focal point for tool and task integration, limiting the jarring edit/build/debug transitions common in IDEs. Xcode 3.0’s editor displays build errors in callouts, automatically presents documentation summaries when keywords are click- or drag-selected, and acts as the breakpoint and symbol exploration interface during debugging. Objective-C 2.0 fixes up the Mac platform’s native language to make it more accessible for C and C++ coders. The Cocoa core Mac framework goes 64-bit and equips applications with powerful zero-code features like spelling and grammar checking. >> Full review >> Go to Apple's Web site Corporate address: 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 408-996-1010 06/14/2007 Apple TV 8.4 Very Good A set-top high-definition digital media player, Apple TV uses built-in 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi or wired Ethernet interfaces to sync and stream user-selected content from up to five iTunes clients. In June a free, automatic software update will allow Apple TV to play video directly from Google's YouTube service. Video and audio quality are very high, and the menu interface is easy and familiar, but only wide-screen monitors are supported. >> Full review >> Go to Apple's Web site Corporate address: 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 408-996-1010 06/13/2007 VMware Fusion Beta 4 0.0 Beta VMware's first foray into the Mac OS X desktop virtualization market is a very strong showing, due in no small part to its proven technology on other platforms. The Fusion beta itself isn't enough to unseat Parallels as the tool of choice on the Mac platform, but it's certainly very close. The full release of Fusion is due in August, and that may make the Parallels-VMware contest a different ball game altogether. >> Full review >> Go to VMware (EMC)'s Web site Corporate address: 3145 Porter Dr. Palo Alto,CA US 94304 Main phone no. 877-486-9273 06/11/2007 Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac 9.1 Excellent Parallels Desktop 3.0 brings several new features to the Mac OS X virtualization game, including direct graphics acceleration capabilities, snapshots, and offline browsing of VM file systems. It’s a very worthy companion to anyone bridging the gaps between the Windows and Mac world, and the price is definitely right. >> Full review >> Go to Parallels' Web site Corporate address: 13800 Coppermine Road Suite 340 Herndon,VA US 20171 Main phone no. (703) 234-5549 06/07/2007 Isilon IQ 200 8.4 Very Good If a conventional NAS feels like a constrictive straitjacket, consider the Isilon IQ 200. With its clustered file system, it can provide great scalability, good performance, and multiple levels of resilience that make losing data an unlikely occurrence. With optional applications the IQ 200 can climb up higher on the ladder with more snapshots than you will ever need, load balancing, and remote sync to an akin recovery site. Too bad Isilon forgot to add a second power supply to its node. Even so, those clusters are hard to kill. >> Full review >> Go to Isilon Systems' Web site Corporate address: 3101 Western Ave Seattle,WA US 98121 Main phone no. (206) 315-7500 06/07/2007 Sun Fire X4500 Server 8.8 Excellent The X4500 is nicknamed the Thumper for a reason – 48 SATA drives in a single 4U chassis accompanying a dual-Opteron server with two PCI-X slots. There’s no hardware RAID, however, and running anything but Solaris with ZFS is going to artificially hamstring the box. It’s not going to supplant the SAN anytime soon, but the X4500 will certainly make waves. >> Full review >> Go to Sun Microsystems' Web site Corporate address: 4150 Network Circle Santa Clara,CA US 95054 Main phone no. 800-555-9SUN 05/31/2007 Jive Software Clearspace X 8.8 Excellent This release of Clearspace, the external community version, has notable new features and many improvements. Items such as content rating and reward system provide incentives for users to participate. The solution has all the requisite wiki, document management, and blog functions. For large communities, server clustering supports high-traffic sites, while LDAP and Active Directory integration speeds setup and maintenance. And the open architecture makes deployment on commodity hardware simple. >> Full review >> Go to Jive Software's Web site Corporate address: 317 SW Alder St Ste 500 Portland,OR US (72-4 Main phone no. 877-495-3700 05/28/2007 HP CM8060 Color MFP 8.2 Very Good Laser, look out! The ink-based CM8060 is fast, and its output quality is very nice. It has some usability quirks, and it weighs an astonishing 725 pounds. Nevertheless, if its price is as competitive as it seems, it's a truly threatening new entry into the color-MFP market. >> Full review >> Go to Hewlett-Packard (HP)'s Web site Corporate address: 3000 Hanover St. Palo Alto,CA US 94304 Main phone no. 650-857-1501 05/24/2007 Oakley SureView 8.7 Excellent This suite of appliances and end point agents team up to detect and stifle content risks. Beyond identifying insider threats and stopping devious behavior, SureView 4.0 observes what happens on the desktop and collects video of these incidents. Reports now include detailed incident lists and executive summaries; the system collects information from more sources, including Lotus Notes; and there's improved incident search. >> Full review >> Go to Oakley Networks' Web site Corporate address: 2755 Cottonwood Parkway, Suite 600 Salt Lake City,UT US 84121 Main phone no. 800-662-9120 05/23/2007 Astoria On-Demand 8.6 Very Good Astoria On-Demand quickly moves enterprises, especially manufacturers, to a DITA standard publishing environment. This easy-to-use solution enables remote teams to author, review, and publish XML-based technical documents. On-Demand manages content as elements (which can be reused), provides automated workflow, and publishes to multiple formats -- with the short implementation and predictable cost provided by the SaaS model. >> Full review >> Go to Astoria Software's Web site Corporate address: 66 Bovet Road, Suite 280 San Mateo,CA US 94402 Main phone no. 650-357-7477 05/18/2007 Trapeze RingMaster with AirDefense 8.8 Excellent The enterprise wireless market shakeout gave birth to several vendor alliances. In the case of AirDefense and Trapeze, the resulting partnership is certainly beneficial, combining Trapeze’s speed with AirDefense’s IDS-oriented security. If the solution needs anything, it would be more automation, which is slated for future releases. >> Full review >> Go to Trapeze Networks' Web site Corporate address: 5753 W. Las Positas Blvd. Pleasanton,CA US 94588 Main phone no. 925.474.2200 05/17/2007 DiVitas Mobile Convergence Appliance 8.5 Very Good DiVitas solution takes on the tricky task of handing off active mobile voice sessions between disparate wireless networks. The solution combines connection analysis with specific application requirements, resulting not only in better connectivity for your users, but considerable cost savings for organizations with lots of road warriors. >> Full review >> Go to Divitas Networks' Web site Corporate address: 321 Castro St, Second floor Mountain View,CA US 94041 Main phone no. (650) 625-1900 05/11/2007 InovaWave DXtreme 8.8 Excellent Inovawave has performed some neat magic with DXtreme, significantly ramping up VM disk I/O through a combination of intelligent caching and predictive block retrieval. It’s limited to 32-bit Windows host platforms now, but 64-bit versions are on the way. If coming versions maintain the performance and broaden the application, DXtreme will be high octane fuel for any virtualization infrastructure. >> Full review >> Go to InovaWave's Web site Corporate address: 9015 Mountain Ridge Drive, Ste. #140 Austin,TX US 78759 Main phone no. (800) 748-0685 05/11/2007 WebInject 8.3 Very Good Much less feature-rich than the other tools, the lightweight WebInject nonetheless bolts out of the starting gate. If you need testing that will be off the ground and flying in minutes, reach for WebInject. On the other hand, it has far fewer capabilities than the other two products in this test, and unless you want to hack the Perl code, WebInject's feature set is pretty much what you install. >> Full review >> Go to WebInject Organization's Web site Corporate address: , US Main phone no. 05/11/2007 PushToTest TestMaker 8.7 Excellent PushToTest's TestMaker is a powerful, professionally crafted package. There are lots of useful test code examples, and its documentation surpasses all expectations. But it has a steep learning curve, and you'll need to know Python to get the most out of it. >> Full review >> Go to PushToTest's Web site Corporate address: 2248 Montezuma Drive Campbell,CA US 95008 Main phone no. (408) 374-7426 05/11/2007 Eviware soapUI 9.0 Excellent SoapUI strikes a good balance between simplicity and capability. It's easy to create new projects, and the tool is clearly under active improvement and development. Spend plenty of time with the help documentation and teach yourself Groovy, and your efforts will pay off. >> Full review >> Go to Eviware Software AB's Web site Corporate address: Bergabovägen 2 Saltsjöbaden Sweden 133 37 , SE Main phone no. +46-70-6665921 05/10/2007 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 0.0 Beta In beta 3, Longhorn Server has taken solid form since its previous release. Major advances center on PowerScript, Microsoft's .Net command-line shell, which is accompanied by utilities that enable robust administration from the PowerShell command line or via text-only connections. Longhorn's firewall has been revamped for greater configurability, and the last pieces of Longhorn's virtualization story have fallen into place with Terminal Services, hypervisor-based 64-bit virtualization, and the productization of newly acquired SoftGrid. >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 05/04/2007 Intransa StorSTac PCU100 9.0 Excellent The Intransa PCU100 offers superb 10Gbit iSCSI performance, scalability, and manageability in a relatively inexpensive package. It uses a unique architecture that connects each drive via TCP/IP, rather than relying on an internal bus. The system is oriented toward streaming data rather than transactional, however, so applications such as databases will not see as great a benefit. The system delivers excellent redundancy with multiple controllers and drive shelves, as well as an easy setup and a great management interface. >> Full review >> Go to Intransa's Web site Corporate address: 2870 Zanker Rd. Ste. 200 San Jose,CA US 95134 Main phone no. 408-678-8600 05/03/2007 IBM ISS Proventia Desktop Endpoint Protection 7.9 Good Proventia Desktop is a host-based firewall with a simple interface. It offers a firewall core supplemented by anti-virus, anti-malware, buffer overflow exploit protection, intrusion prevention, and can function as a Cisco Network Admission Control (NAC) agent. Solid performance and security defense are hampered by a few limitations, including built-in application and service exceptions. Overall, it's a good host-based firewall with above-average features. >> Full review >> Go to IBM's Web site Corporate address: 1133 Westchester Ave. White Plains,NY US 10604 Main phone no. 800-426-4968 04/26/2007 Network Appliance StoreVault S500 8.3 Very Good Running a slightly slimmer version of DataOnTap, the low-cost StoreVault S500 gets high marks in the gigabyte-for-the-buck department, but lacks some punch due to the relatively anemic processor. It's simple to install and maintain, and it runs the same OS as NetApp's high-end gear. It’s not going to burn up the wire, but it will provide big storage for a small price. >> Full review >> Go to Network Appliance's Web site Corporate address: 495 East Java Dr. Sunnyvale,CA US 94089 Main phone no. 408-822-6000 04/26/2007 Celeros EzSANFiler XD 7.9 Good Celeros has produced a solid solution in the EzSANFiler XD. By integrating SAS and SATA drive support within the same chassis, a solid-state OS drive, and a functional GUI for an impressively low price, it's hard to ignore. The performance numbers were good, but seemed abnormally low at certain file sizes, and there were some concerns regarding hardware fit and finish. Overall, Celeros is a company to watch, and the EzSANFiler XD is definitely worth a look. >> Full review >> Go to Celeros' Web site Corporate address: 2694 Middlefield Rd, Suite A Redwood City,CA US 94063 Main phone no. 888-306-0646 04/26/2007 Adaptec Snap Server 650 8.3 Very Good Sporting two dual-core Opteron CPUs and 2GB of RAM, the Snap Server 650 took top honors in our performance testing, and it offers a wide array of features to boot. The GUI could use some polish and the price is relatively high, but it's certainly a fast, scalable, and easily integrated solution. >> Full review >> Go to Adaptec's Web site Corporate address: 691 South Milpitas Blvd. Milpitas,CA US 95035 Main phone no. 408-945-8600 04/26/2007 Dell PowerVault NX1950 8.1 Very Good The NX1950 is essentially a Dell PowerEdge 1950 with a SAS array hung off the back, running Windows Unified Storage Server. It's a quick fit into any Windows-centric network and is easy to configure and maintain, but the NFS support is unfortunately difficult to implement and manage. It's a solid performer, but has the overhead of a full Windows server installation, and a higher price than the other units in the test. >> Full review >> Go to Dell's Web site Corporate address: 1 Dell Way Round Rock,TX US 78682 Main phone no. 800-274-3355 04/19/2007 Sentillion vThere 8.4 Very Good Sentillion vThere leverages a robust, hosted authentication and validation service to simplify the provisioning and deployment of VM images to desktop and laptop systems. A well-rounded management solution with strong support for VPNs, vThere delivers the advantages of a hosted model at a price point close enough to VMware ACE to woo fence-sitters. >> Full review >> Go to Sentillion's Web site Corporate address: 40 Shattuck Rd. Suite 200 Andover,MA US 01810 Main phone no. (978) 689-9095 04/19/2007 Kidaro Managed Workspace 8.4 Very Good Kidaro Managed Workspace covers all of the VM management essentials while delivering significant innovation in the areas of desktop integration and network bandwidth optimization during VM deployment. However, it’s literally twice as expensive as Sentillion vThere and lacks the flexibility of the vThere.net hosted service. >> Full review >> Go to Kidaro's Web site Corporate address: 676A 9th Avenue, Suite 272 New York,NY US 10036 Main phone no. 212.937.5115 04/12/2007 Palisade PacketSure 8.5 Very Good PacketSure, a network appliance, monitors TCP and UDP traffic passively or inline. The system performs deep packet inspection and will block or encrypt traffic at the network edge. The default 140 signature rules can be customized with keyword matching or extended using regular expressions. Content analysis add-ons match specific information in databases and files, such as credit card or private healthcare data. >> Full review >> Go to Palisade Systems' Web site Corporate address: 2625 North Loop Dr. Suite 2120 Ames,IA US 50010 Main phone no. 515-296-6500 04/12/2007 MessageGate Enterprise Email Governance 8.6 Very Good MessageGate's modular solution lets you create usage policies, install a message adapter on your e-mail server, analyze messages against polices, and then act appropriately (such as placing a hold on messages). Most significant, this system applies archiving policies and tags to messages before they enter your message vault -- which helps reduce storage space and also e-mail discovery and investigation costs. >> Full review >> Go to MessageGate's Web site Corporate address: 10900 NE 8th St., Suite 1300 Bellevue,WA US 98004 Main phone no. 425-460-5060 04/12/2007 Code Green Networks Content Inspection Appliance 1500 (CI 1500) 8.8 Excellent The CI-1500, appropriate for midsize organizations and government agencies, monitors communications, discovers data leaks, and automatically enforces policies. Predefined policy templates and wizards get the content inspection appliance set up and protecting networks in a day. It monitors widely used TCP protocols, while a built-in mail transfer agent blocks or reroutes messages. Incident management, workflow, and auditing complete this solution. >> Full review >> Go to Code Green Networks' Web site Corporate address: 3975 Freedom Circle, Suite 900 Santa Clara,CA US 95054 Main phone no. 408-213-2300 04/12/2007 InBoxer Anti-Risk Appliance 8.5 Very Good InBoxer's affordable Anti-Risk Appliance scans inbound, outbound, and internal messages for various privacy violations. The system uses sophisticated language models (based on speech recognition) to score messages -- and then invokes rules based on the score. The system also excels at real-time reporting and customized dashboards, which shorten investigations; additionally, InBoxer stores messages for historical search. However, there's no blocking capability. >> Full review >> Go to InBoxer's Web site Corporate address: 200 Baker Avenue, Suite 101 Concord,MA US 01742 Main phone no. 978-341-0020 04/09/2007 Altova DatabaseSpy 8.3 Very Good DatabaseSpy 2007 is a very nice query tool that works with multiple databases in a single project. It has intuitive and powerful import/export facilities that handle an array of file types. It also has a base-level table designer that works very well for the non-database professional. Users will love the code-completion feature. And, although Vista is not officially listed as a supported platform, I had no problems running DatabaseSpy on the OS. >> Full review >> Go to Altova's Web site Corporate address: 900 Cummings Center Suite 314 T Beverly,MA US 01915 Main phone no. 978-816-1600 04/05/2007 Juniper DX3680 8.7 Excellent The DX3680 is an example of the adage "you get what you pay for." It's a very capable 2U appliance that not only creates clusters of Web servers but also adds SSL encryption, user authentication, and protection against hacker attacks. All of this is done transparently without having to rewrite HTML code on the Web servers. The application rules functionality provides powerful customization capabilities as well. >> Full review >> Go to Juniper Networks' Web site Corporate address: 1194 North Mathilda Ave. Sunnyvale,CA US 94089 Main phone no. 888-586-4737 04/02/2007 Coral8 Engine 7.5 Good Coral8 Engine offers an affordable entry point for getting started with CEP. Its proprietary CCL language is straightforward, and the package offers good tutorial insight. Be prepared to build out admin and monitoring facilities. Basic fail-over and clustering are sufficient for most non-mission critical applications. >> Full review >> Go to Coral8's Web site Corporate address: 82 Pioneer Way, Suite 106 Mountain View,CA US 94041 Main phone no. 650.210.3810 03/29/2007 IBM ISS Proventia MS3004 7.6 Good The MS3004 appliance integrates well with Active Directory or LDAP networks and includes very good intrusion prevention and firewall features. Anti-spam performance is good but not exceptional, with a relatively high rate of false positives. >> Full review >> Go to IBM Internet Security Systems (ISS)'s Web site Corporate address: 6303 Barfield Rd. Atlanta,GA US 30328 Main phone no. 404-236-2700 03/26/2007 CodeGear JBuilder 8.6 Very Good JBuilder is a smooth, well-designed, capable IDE. It offers excellent metrics and code inspections plus stellar team integration tools. It works seamlessly with numerous open-source tools, Java servers, and databases. It is limited for the moment to Windows only. >> Full review >> Go to Borland Software's Web site Corporate address: 20450 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 800 Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 408- 863-2800 03/26/2007 IBM Rational Application Developer (RAD) for WebSphere Software 7.9 Good IBM’s RAD 7 is a robust, capable IDE that integrates especially well with other IBM technologies and has good visual editors. However, it does not support Java EE 5 or Java SE 6, and it has limited modeling capabilities — two big drawbacks. >> Full review >> Go to IBM's Web site Corporate address: 1133 Westchester Ave. White Plains,NY US 10604 Main phone no. 800-426-4968 03/22/2007 InnoTek VirtualBox 6.9 Fair VirtualBox is a modular VM solution that lends itself to integration and customization. Its availability as an open-source option makes it an attractive choice for in-house projects; however, sluggish performance and a buggy stock UI undermine the product’s overall appeal. >> Full review >> Go to InnoTek's Web site Corporate address: Werkstrasse 24 71384 Weinstadt , DE Main phone no. +49 (0) 7151 60405-0 03/22/2007 Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 7.4 Good Virtual PC 2007 is an underperforming desktop virtualization package that offers only marginal improvements over its predecessor, Virtual PC 2004. Fortunately, Microsoft has relegated the product to the role of a free compatibility layer for Windows Vista, effectively placing Virtual PC 2007 in the same class as VMware’s Player application (though with even fewer features). >> Full review >> Go to Microsoft's Web site Corporate address: 1 Microsoft Way Redmond,WA US 98052 Main phone no. 425-882-8080 03/19/2007 APC NetBotz WallBotz 500 8.1 Very Good The APC NetBotz environmental monitoring solution keeps tabs on temperature, humidity, airflow, and dew point; it even provides motion- and audio-detection and video surveillance with a modular framework of sensor pods and cameras. The USB-based connections and rather odd physical layout of the devices are detriments to a large implementation, but the overall package is robust and rich in capability. >> Full review >> Go to American Power Conversion (APC)'s Web site Corporate address: 132 Fairgrounds Rd. W. Kingston,RI US 02892 Main phone no. 800-788-2208 03/19/2007 APC InfraStruXure Central 8.1 Very Good The APC NetBotz environmental monitoring solution keeps tabs on temperature, humidity, airflow, and dew point; it even provides motion- and audio-detection and video surveillance with a modular framework of sensor pods and cameras. The USB-based connections and rather odd physical layout of the devices are detriments to a large implementation, but the overall package is robust and rich in capability. >> Full review >> Go to American Power Conversion (APC)'s Web site Corporate address: 132 Fairgrounds Rd. W. Kingston,RI US 02892 Main phone no. 800-788-2208 03/16/2007 CP Secure CSG-2500 7.7 Good The CSG-2500 from CP Secure provides a very solid first line of defense against Web-based malware and viruses. Its real-time scanning engines don't add excessive latency to traffic, yet still manage to detect hidden digital nasties as they try to pass through the appliance. Reporting could be a bit more comprehensive and this release doesn't scan IM or CIFS traffic, but it does inspect HTTPS traffic and allows for separate inbound and outbound SMTP policies. >> Full review >> Go to CP Secure's Web site Corporate address: 20065 Stevens Creek Boulevard, Building C Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 408-873-7778 03/15/2007 Breece Hill BizGuardian 8.6 Very Good Breece Hill BizGuardian offers small shops a unique combination of backup server plus 10-slot LTO-3 autoloader plus about 1.3TB of disk storage space for mostly unattended, highly automated backups. The excellent EMC Retrospect backup application glues together these components, adding top notch scheduling options, wizard-driven setup and restores, good monitoring and reporting, and even robust encryption. >> Full review >> Go to Breece Hill LLC's Web site Corporate address: 246 S. Taylor Ave. Louisville,CO US 80027 Main phone no. 800.941.0550 03/09/2007 GridApp Clarity 8.1 Very Good Clarity 3.5 is excellent at provisioning Oracle and RAC installations, although it delivers less functionality for SQL Server. The solution handles patch management fairly well — although it doesn’t manage patch downloads — plus it offers internal auditing and reporting. Scaling is fairly impressive, too: A single management server will scale about 300 managed agents. >> Full review >> Go to GridApp Systems' Web site Corporate address: 156 5th Avenue - Penthouse New York City,NY US 10010 Main phone no. (646) 452-4100 03/08/2007 seeMore Virtual Database Server 9.1 Excellent A brilliant tool that will enable a large enterprise to gather its far-flung databases – regardless of their origins – under a single, relational roof. The seeMore Virtual Database Server seeks to provide access to just about any data source, even flat text files and highly-structured COBOL databases, through standard ODBC, JDBC, or OLEDB interfaces. It succeeds. >> Full review >> Go to seeMore Technologies and Solutions' Web site Corporate address: 1A Tower Square 33 Wellington Street Leeds LS1 4HZ , GB Main phone no. +44 (0) 113 209 5732 03/05/2007 Black Duck protexIP 5.9 Poor Black Duck protexIP scans through source code and compares it with a database of open-source projects to see whether any of your code was borrowed and what the licensing implications might be. Unfortunately, in our tests, it missed matches to well-known open-source projects. Display glitches make the interface difficult to use. We recommend waiting for an improved version. >> Full review >> Go to Black Duck Software's Web site Corporate address: 265 Winter Street Waltham,MA US 02451 Main phone no. 781.891.5100 02/26/2007 EqualLogic PS3800XV 9.2 Excellent EqualLogic’s PS3800XV iSCSI array represents the highly evolved state of iSCSI SAN arrays with panache. Fully featured and blazingly fast, this SAS-based array will easily find a home in infrastructures of any size, although the cost will keep it out of smaller shops. For virtualization implementations, you can’t do better than a PS3800XV. >> Full review >> Go to EqualLogic's Web site Corporate address: 9 Townsend West Nashua,NH US 03063 Main phone no. 888-579-9762 02/26/2007 LeftHand Networks SAN/iQ and SAN Solution 8.9 Excellent LeftHand’s SAN/iQ breaks all the rules with a storage solution that focuses on easy management, virtually unrestricted scalability, and nonproprietary hardware. The minimum entry point is a single box, LeftHand-built or a from a third-party. SAN/iQ includes all the management tools to easily build a reliable and fast clustered platform built on iSCSI. >> Full review >> Go to LeftHand Networks' Web site Corporate address: 1688 Conestoga Boulder,CO US 80301 Main phone no. 303-449-4100 02/16/2007 Thinstall Virtualization Suite 8.0 Very Good Thinstall is a robust, self-contained application virtualization solution that requires no client-side agents or supporting server infrastructure. Thinstall’s “clean” architecture makes it suitable to a wide range of deployment scenarios, including environments in which traditional agent-based products would be inappropriate. IT shops evaluating SoftGrid or SVS should also consider Thinstall. >> Full review >> Go to Thinstall's Web site Corporate address: 22 Battery Street, Suite 703 San Francisco,CA US 94111 Main phone no. (800) 736 6514 02/16/2007 Orchestria 8.6 Very Good The extremely scalable Orchestria 4.7 monitors electronic communications for threats and risks using agents distributed to desktops, e-mail, and SMTP servers; it also integrates with storage management systems. A central management server handles very robust policies (200 sets are included), while also capturing communications for historical review. Multifactor content analysis contributes to high accuracy. >> Full review >> Go to Orchestria's Web site Corporate address: 437 Madison Avenue New York,NY US 10022 Main phone no. 212 364 5300 02/12/2007 Dell PowerConnect 6248 8.4 Very Good Once again, Dell manages to produce a solid switch for an incredibly low price. The PowerConnect 6248 is a full Layer-3 switch that can handle up to four 10G ports in addition to 48 gigabit Ethernet ports. It also sports the best array of switching and routing features yet seen on the PowerConnect line. >> Full review >> Go to Dell's Web site Corporate address: 1 Dell Way Round Rock,TX US 78682 Main phone no. 800-274-3355 02/09/2007 Xerox WorkCentre 7655 7.8 Good The Xerox WorkCentre 7655’s fine image quality is offset by unexpected and disappointing print and copy speeds. Mechanically, it does most things right, but its features set is a little short on power-user features compared to the other MFPs in this test. >> Full review >> Go to Xerox's Web site Corporate address: 800 Long Ridge Rd. Stamford,CT US 06904 Main phone no. 203-968-3000 02/09/2007 Toshiba e-Studio 3510c 7.9 Good The Toshiba e-Studio 3510c’s clean control panel menus, well-thought-out design, and reasonably attractive image quality may be available at a lower cost than the competition, but you’ll give up some printing speed to save that money. >> Full review >> Go to Toshiba's Web site Corporate address: 1251 Avenue of the Americas Suite 4110 New York,NY US 10020 Main phone no. 02/09/2007 Sharp MX-4501N 8.0 Very Good The self-contained Sharp MX-4501N is the only model we tested that provides stapling, that essential finishing feature, without an external finisher. It’s loaded with useful features, including multitasking, but the image quality is not as good as other machines in this test. >> Full review >> Go to Sharp Electronics' Web site Corporate address: Sharp Plaza Mahwah,NJ US 07430 Main phone no. 201-529-8200 02/09/2007 Ricoh Aficio MP C4500 8.9 Excellent The overall top scorer in this test, the Ricoh MP C4500 still has some kinks to work out in image quality, and we found it somewhat harder to use than the other systems. However, the blinding speed and well-crafted features set make up for these small shortcomings. >> Full review >> Go to Ricoh's Web site Corporate address: 5 Dedrick Place West Caldwell,NJ US 07006 Main phone no. 800-637-4264 02/05/2007 Trend Micro Network VirusWall Enforcer (NVWE) 7.8 Good Trend Micro’s solution provides comprehensive traffic-based policy management in addition to standard network access approval or rejection. The limitations are those inherent in gateway solutions, including requirements on where enforcers are placed into the network and the inability to enforce policy on traffic that does not pass through them. >> Full review >> Go to Trend Micro's Web site Corporate address: 10101 N. De Anza Blvd. Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 800-228-5651 02/05/2007 Symantec Network Access Control 7.6 Good Symantec’s comprehensive suite supports multiple approaches to detection and enforcement. The user interface paradigm is somewhat difficult to learn, so infrequent use could lead to challenges in defining new policies or modifying current ones. Support for gateway and non-gateway enforcement expands the options for solution design. >> Full review >> Go to Symantec's Web site Corporate address: 20330 Stevens Creek Blvd. Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 408-517-8000 02/05/2007 McAfee Policy Enforcer 7.8 Good McAfee has developed a largely vendor-neutral policy enforcement product as an add-on to the company’s policy management platform. Sporting a well-designed user interface and a broad range of pre-defined policies, Policy Enforcer is a good choice for enterprises not requiring policies that rely on individual user identity or group membership. >> Full review >> Go to McAfee's Web site Corporate address: 3965 Freedom Circle Santa Clara,CA US 95054 Main phone no. 888-847-8766 02/05/2007 Enterasys Sentinel Trusted Access Manager (TAN) & Gateway (TAG) 7.7 Good Enterasys’ comprehensive NAC offering gives enterprises the ability to develop finely tuned policies and enforce them. The broad scope has led to some unnecessary complexity in the administrative interfaces, but integration with the Enterasys switches allows deep knowledge of network traffic to be leveraged as a component of policies. >> Full review >> Go to Enterasys Networks' Web site Corporate address: 50 Minuteman Rd. Andover,MA US 01810 Main phone no. 978-684-1000 01/26/2007 Packeteer iShared IS 100/100BR 7.9 Good Packeteer’s iShared appliance provides excellent CIFS acceleration in a variety of WAN conditions, outpacing all other tested appliances to date. I like how it integrates with Microsoft DFS namespaces and provides true end-to-end file-locking and SMB-signing support. When it comes to optimizing other types of traffic, namely FTP and MAPI, Packeteer is a little behind other WAN optimization players. Reporting and setup are also areas in need of improvement. >> Full review >> Go to Packeteer's Web site Corporate address: 10201 N. De Anza Blvd. Cupertino,CA US 95014 Main phone no. 408-873-4400 01/26/2007 Cast Iron Systems iA3000 7.5 Good CastIron iA3000 v3.5 is an EAI system and server packaged as an appliance. Installation is extremely simple. Developing orchestrations is primarily a visual configuration process. Options have deliberately been limited to make this a simple product to understand and use; that’s great unless you need more than it can deliver. >> Full review >> Go to Cast Iron Systems' Web site Corporate address: 2593 Coast Avenue Mountain View,CA US 94043 Main phone no. (650) 230-0621 01/22/2007 Oracle SOA Suite 10g 8.7 Excellent The Oracle SOA Suite pulls together top-notch governance, business rules, security, and business activity monitoring into an ESB package replete with native BPEL orchestration and human workflow integration. Tools skew to the developer side (with the exception of BAM) but are well-suited to the job. Ease of implementation and affordability make it a standout consideration. >> Full review >> Go to Oracle's Web site Corporate address: 500 Oracle Pkwy. Redwood Shores,CA US 94065 Main phone no. 650-506-7000 01/19/2007 Compuware DevPartner Fault Simulator 7.4 Good DPFS 2.0 is a useful tool for testing and improving .Net applications’ exception handling, and can be a time-saver for serious .Net shops. The price is still high, but this version has some improved capabilities and better integration with code coverage and defect tracking tools than its predecessor. >> Full review >> Go to Compuware's Web site Corporate address: One Campus Martius Detroit,MI US 48226 Main phone no. 800-521-9353 01/15/2007 HP ProLiant BL460c 8.3 Very Good HP’s brand-new quad-core Intel blades made their debut in this test, delivering eight total cores across two sockets in each half-height blade. The c-Class offers an impressive 16 blades per 10U chassis, and an equally impressive array of I/O options, including integrated Cisco switching modules. We did see some relatively minor hardware problems in the lab, possibly due to the pre-release status of the blades. Overall, the c-Class is solidly built and reasonably priced for a high-end blade system. >> Full review >> Go to Hewlett-Packard (HP)'s Web site Corporate address: 3000 Hanover St. Palo Alto,CA US 94304 Main phone no. 650-857-1501 01/15/2007 Dell PowerEdge 1955 8.3 Very Good Dell’s PowerEdge 1955 surprised us in the SPEChpc tests, turning in the best score by far, and it offers unique features such as the embedded Avocent KVM. In spite of being the smallest chassis (7U) in the test, it offers a significant amount of processing power. The management can run stand-alone or integrated into Dell’s OpenManage framework, but isn’t terribly impressive either way. All things considered, the PowerEdge 1955 offers the best bang for the buck. >> Full review >> Go to Dell's Web site Corporate address: 1 Dell Way Round Rock,TX US 78682 Main phone no. 800-274-3355 01/15/2007 Sun Blade 8000 Modular System 8.2 Very Good Sun’s x8400 is more of a consolidated server structure than true blades. Each server module offers a four-socket Opteron mainboard with up to 64GB of RAM, and Sun fits 10 modules into a 19U chassis that’s just bursting with I/O options. Its surprisingly poor performance in the lab is likely due to poor optimization on the SPEChpc tests. Either way, it cost Sun on the final score -- but the x8400 is impressively powerful, and a great match for a virtualization infrastructure. >> Full review >> Go to Sun Microsystems' Web site Corporate address: 4150 Network Circle Santa Clara,CA US 95054 Main phone no. 800-555-9SUN 01/12/2007 Identify Software AppSight 8.6 Very Good AppSight records very detailed data about program operations that enable developers to easily reproduce problems for quick bug identification. Version 6.0 is a superb tool that will save tech support, QA teams, and developers a lot of time -- if they can afford the breathtaking price and don’t need to run it on Linux or Unix servers. >> Full review >> Go to Identify Software (BMC)'s Web site Corporate address: 350 Seventh Ave, 18th Floor New York,NY US 10001 Main phone no. 212 629 0003 01/11/2007 Cisco 7200 Family 7206VXR NPE-G2 8.6 Very Good Cisco’s 7206VXR is a bit more than meets the eye. The major components, such as the new NPE-G2, provide double the performance of the previous generation, but are fully compatible with existing chassis. The same is true for the new VPN Services Adapter, which provides IPSec VPN acceleration for high-performance VPN tunnels. Aggregation routers are generally responsible for large parts of any network, so performance and reliability aren’t optional -- they’re requirements. On these fronts, the new 7206 delivers. >> Full review >> Go to Cisco Systems' Web site Corporate address: 170 West Tasman Dr. San Jose,CA US 95134 Main phone no. 800-553-6387 01/11/2007 Gordano Messaging Suite (GMS) 8.4 Very Good Gordano Messaging Suite 12 offers good value for the price. It is feature-rich and does not require nearly the overhead of Microsoft Exchange. It also integrates well with Outlook, though I preferred the Web client’s functionality and ease of use. >> Full review >> Go to Gordano's Web site Corporate address: 18 Kenn Rd. North Somerset Clevedon, GB BS21 6EL Main phone no. 877 292 1142 01/05/2007 Socialtext 8.4 Very Good Socialtext is a secure group-editable wiki with e-mail integration, Weblogs, easy editing, RSS feeds, and multiple workspaces. There’s simple file management; custom tags for organizing content; and personalization options. Pages can be sent to other workspaces for cross-team collaboration. The Enterprise version adds LDAP/Active Directory integration and unlimited attachments. >> Full review >> Go to Socialtext's Web site Corporate address: 655 High Street Palo Alto,CA US 94301 Main phone no. 650-323-0800 01/05/2007 Near-Time 8.6 Very Good Near-Time integrates a group Weblog with wiki pages, team event calendar, and shared files through a secure hosted service. The system makes it easy to invite members and control access rights, plus there’s easy page editing and news posting. Content’s organized with categories and tags, which are also used for advanced searches. >> Full review >> Go to Near-Time's Web site Corporate address: 1289 N. Fordham Blvd. Suite A-410 Chapel Hill,NC US 27514 Main phone no. 919.806.4311 01/05/2007 Atlassian Confluence 8.8 Excellent Confluence’s atypical features — fine-grained security, e-mail integration, and PDF export — build on a polished interface, easy page editing, and uncomplicated administration. The system integrates with SOAP and XML-RPC services and there’s no limit to the number of spaces that can be created and branded differently, making the solution appropriate for large companies. >> Full review >> Go to Atlassian Software Systems' Web site Corporate address: Level 3, 275 George Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000 , AU Main phone no. (+61) 2 9299-8761 01/05/2007 Traction Software TeamPage 9.0