News

IT Weekly Roundup, Jan. 7

From the business wires this week: Microsoft's antispyware, Xbox 2, management solutions, developer tools and a portable magneto-optical drive.

Microsoft continues to broaden its reach across industries this past week with a handful of interesting developments. First, security vendors are seeing the beginnings of an ugly rivalry as Microsoft launched its highly publicized foray into the security market with the beta version of Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware. Based on the antispyware technology developed by recently acquired Giant Company Software, the software tool can regularly search and remove spyware and pop-up ads as well as undo unwanted changes made to Internet Explorer settings.

And although there was much anticipation leading into the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Bill Gates did not unveil the successor to Microsoft’s popular Xbox gaming console, Xbox Next. For interested gamers, however, Gates did drop some hints in an interview with News.com that the second-generation Xbox, code-named Xenon, will be more than just a gaming machine, by deepening the experience of Xbox Live’s voice communication feature and expanding multimedia capabilities through possible integration with Windows Media Center.

For the more business-minded, the release of Microsoft Business Solutions Small Business Financials North America Edition provides a range of accounting and financial management tools for small businesses in the United States and Canada. A rebranded and updated version of Microsoft Business Solutions Business Manager, the business management solution offers enhanced compatibility with Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 and the ability to import data from applications like QuickBooks and Peachtree. http://www.microsoft.com

Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware
[Click on image for larger view.]
Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware supports Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003.

Vasont Systems is increasing the integration of its Vasont Content Management System product with Microsoft Word 2003 by allowing users to access Vasont directly from Word, combine Word content with XML content stored in Vasont, and convert Word documents to XML for use across an enterprise. http://www.vasont.com

Developers will be able to streamline the application development process with Dataphor 2.0, the latest version of the development toolset from Alphora. Based on Microsoft .NET, Dataphor 2.0 features improvements in performance, security, scalability and usability, including real-time translation and compensation for all major dialects of SQL, and multi-client architecture, enabling both Windows and Web access to the same application. Single developer licenses are $995 per developer and $295 per deployed Dataphor Server. http://www.alphora.com

Fujitsu DynaMO 1300 Pocket

Fujitsu DynaMO 1300 Pocket connects to PCs by Hi-Speed USB 2.0.

For affordable but reliable backup or archival of critical data, Fujitsu presents the DynaMO 1300 Pocket Magneto-Optical (MO) drive. The SecureMO Folder file encryption software that comes bundled with the USB bus-powered portable drive can encrypt and password-protect files on 3.5-inch MO disks with capacities from 1.3GB to 128MB. The DynaMO 1300 Pocket with software is priced at $199 MSRP. http://www.fujitsu.com

About the Author

Dan Hong is the associate Web editor of MCPmag.com, CertCities.com, TCPmag.com, Redmondmag.com and RCPmag.com.

Featured

comments powered by Disqus

Subscribe on YouTube