Kerio MailServer 6.5 could be pretty good news for IT shops whose users want to collaborate despite being on different systems.
According to Dusan Vitek, vice-president of worldwide marketing at Kerio Technologies Inc. in San Jose, the new release lets Linux, Mac, Windows and even mobile handset users all share and subscribe to one another’s calendars.
He says MailServer 6.5 also includes an updated Outlook plug-in that lets people read and write mail, make calendar changes and perform other groupware tasks while disconnected from the Kerio MailServer. The new plug-in includes the open-source Firebird database, which can capture all work done on the road and update everything once the user reconnects.
Another benefit of Firebird, Vitek says, is that users can do full-text searches. Pricing starts at US$499 for 10 users.
Rely on Hardware
More than 150 million PCs and laptops are equipped with the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) microprocessor, estimates Steven Sprague, CEO of Wave Systems Corp. in Lee, Mass. And Intel Corp. will soon include TPM as part of its chip sets.
So, Sprague states, “there’s no excuse anymore” for organizations to overlook this technology for storing data encryption keys and providing authentication services.
Corporate IT departments need to be educated about the benefits of using the TPM chip to secure computers, he says. First, Sprague points out, “you can’t hack hardware.” If a hacker doesn’t type the user’s PIN or passcode, he can’t access the machine.
IT’s reliance on software to secure data and network access baffles Sprague. “Software for security has pretty much failed us,” he says.
For IT, the near-term security advantages of TPM are significant. Without making any new investments, Sprague claims, IT departments can “write 10 lines of code” to enable networks to accept authentication certificates from TPM machines — no more maintaining occasionally flaky VPN clients and infrastructure.
No Recession in Store for MSPs?
We should all be so lucky. In good economic times, managed service providers (MSP) get business when their customers are expanding too fast for in-house IT staffers to keep up. In bad times, customers often need to cut capital expenditures and head count, bringing more business to MSPs.
Moreover, MSPs cover all business segments, and not all vertical markets dip simultaneously. As Christopher Assif says, “When the financial segment goes down, the health care sector goes up. We’re sort of recession-proof.”
Indeed, despite talk of recession, the executive vice-president of Louisville, Ky.-based <a href="http://www.smoothstone.com/" target="_blank" Smoothstone IP Communications Corp. forecasts that his company will add 50 people this year. And he says he’s “not terribly nervous” about MSPs from India, which he claims will compete mostly on price, not quality of service and support.
To lure even more business, Smoothstone, which manages converged voice and data IP services, will add instant messaging support to its service menu. The Smoothstone Messaging Service, available in Q2, will use best-of-breed technology from a third party (possibly IBM) that is integrated into the company’s Web-based management console, where users can see the status of their network, voice and, soon, messaging connections through a single user interface. Pricing for the IM service has not been set.
