Stories by: Bryan Betts

Telephony has at last become an IT product, claimed Nortel as it announced SCS500, an open source-based unified communications suite for small and mid-sized businesses.

De-duplication has become popular for backup data, but not for primary storage. Now, US start-up company Ocarina Networks wants to change that, with a data reduction technology which it claims can shrink live production data too - even if the file formats are already compressed.

Software developer Unison has launched what it claimed is the world's first fully-unified communications suite based on Linux.

A networking industry exec has challenged Juniper to post its operating system source code on the Internet, and stop hiding behind legalese and paperwork.

Thin client specialist Chip PC has scored a big win for Microsoft in the German public sector - traditionally thought to be a hotbed of Linux - with what it claimed is Europe's largest single deal for thin clients.

Adaptec has added three iSCSI-only storage subsystems to its SnapServer line, and aims to go head to head with NetApp, EqualLogic, LeftHand and even Dell/EMC in the market for mid-sized storage area networks, or SANs.

Server-load balancing is on the up, according to analysts at the Dell'Oro Group. The segment jumped 15 percent on revenues last quarter to a record US$264 million (AU$319.7) worldwide - equivalent to over US$1 billion a year.

Optical fibre is a lot easier to tap than most people imagine. There is no need to break or splice the fibre now -- a relatively shallow bend can be enough.

New browser-based application technologies are opening new security holes, warned SPI Dynamics as it launched a re-engineered version of its SOA/Web 2.0 security testing software WebInspect this week.

Traffic management specialist Zeus has jumped into the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) business with an in-line connection broker. The product will provide secure access to a pool of remote desktops as well as logging their connections.

Nearly half of all enterprises will be running mission-critical business applications on Linux in five years' time. That's according to survey of IT directors, VPs and CIOs carried out by Saugatuck Research, which questioned 133 businesses worldwide.