5/22/00 PC Week from ZDWire (See Bold)
2000 WL 18177555
eWEEK from ZDWire
Copyright (c) 2000 ZD Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Monday, May 22, 2000
1721
Spotlight
Chris Gonsalves
Office 10 beta is on the way
On the heels of showing off a preview of Office 2001 for the
Macintosh, Microsoft Corp. has begun soliciting beta testers for Office
10, the next release of the Windows version of its flagship desktop
office suite.
Microsoft is telling testers that the first beta of Office 10 will
debut in July. In the interim, the com pany is fixing and patching
Office 2000 and its individual components, such as Outlook 2000.
Office 10 is expected to be the first version of Microsoft's desktop
suite to include speech technologies.
The suite is also expected to include speech-to-text and
text-to-speech functions, such as dictation and e-mail reading
capabilities.
Office 10 could also include a component that Microsoft demonstrated
in the alpha version of Office 2001 for the Mac: an integrated e-mail,
scheduling and personal information manager application, code-named
Alpaca.
Officials in Redmond, Wash., declined to provide a tentative
commercial ship date for Office 10, but a possible time frame, based on
past Office releases, could be the summer of 2001.
Microsoft this week will post to its Web site a "set of updates" to
Outlook 2000, one of Office 2000's components, aimed at staving off worms and e-mail-attachment viruses, company officials said. The patches
will apply to Outlook 2000 and Outlook 98.
Microsoft officials declined to comment on Office 10. ZDNN
WebTrends scales up
Webtrends Corp., of Portland, Ore., has released Version 3.0 of its
Web traffic analysis application, Enterprise Reporting Server, promising
scalability improvements that will make the server suitable for
high-traffic sites.
Enterprise Reporting Server provides real-time analysis of site
traffic and reporting of site activity. It tracks performance and
visitors' behavior as well as how visitors got to the site.
Enterprise Reporting Server 3.0 is available for Windows NT, Windows
2000, Solaris and Linux servers. Pricing for the Solaris version is
$4,999 for the first server and $2,999 for each additional server.
Pricing for Windows 2000, NT and Linux is $1,999 for the first server
and $1,199 for each additional one.
USB-ready UPSes debut
Power protection equipment maker Tripp Lite last week unveiled a
low-cost line of UPSes that takes advantage of user-friendly USB.
Coupled with Tripp Lite's PowerAlert Software, the new SmartPro USB
systems are some of the first Universal Serial Bus-ready uninterruptible
power supply systems that offer premium data protection for both Windows
and Mac OS.
The SmartPro USB systems will ship this month for prices starting at
$169 for the 500VA model.
Comm box gets secure
Startup Flexion Systems is adding broadband security to its
integrated voice mail/e-mail communications device.
The San Francisco company announced it is working with SonicWall Inc.
to add the company's Sonic Wall Internet security appliance to its BusinessGuardian X300 communication device for small business.
The SonicWall Internet security appliance combines firewall, content
filtering and virtual private network functionality. Flexion X300
integrates voice mail, fax and call center functionality with
traditional e-mail programs. The sub-$6,000 Windows NT-based device
accepts up to eight phone lines.[KORN Comment: Well, it actually scales to 112 extensions and multiple PRI inputs, so over 50 distinct incoming phone lines]
Computing on the go
Next generation of wearable systems
The deal Wearable computer and communications gear developer
Xybernaut Corp. has signed a deal with IBM to design, develop and
manufacture the computer portion of Xybernaut's next generation of
wearable systems. The deal is part of IBM's commitment to delivering
pervasive computing solutions, especially devices that simplify
computing for businesses, company officials said.
Nice fit Xybernaut officials said the IBM advances in design and
miniaturization of mobile computers would mesh well with the Fairfax,
Va., company's latest development efforts.
Preaching the word Xybernaut already offers a line of wearable
computers and mobile devices that run on most major operating systems on
Intel Corp.'s X86 architecture. The company last week hosted a
conference in Tysons Corner, Va., at which participants discussed the
benefits of wearable computing in fields ranging from manufacturing to
government and technologies ranging from speech capabilities to Global
Positioning Systems. The company also announced last week its agreement
with Texas Instruments Inc. to develop solutions that take advantage of
TI's digital-signal-processing technology.
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