Briefs: October 4, 2004

FORMER GATEWAY EXEC JOINS VIEWSONIC

The display products vendor said Matt Milne has joined the company as senior vice president of business development and strategy. He previously was senior vice president and general manager of consumer solutions at Gateway, which he left in July following the company's merger with eMachines.

In his new post, Milne will direct corporate strategy, business development and strategic investment efforts aimed at growing sales in business and consumer product lines. He reports directly to James Chu, ViewSonic's founder, chairman and CEO.

Milne said he aims to continue ViewSonic's march into new markets while also ensuring that the company's core display business remains solid. "Without a strong core, it is impossible to grow," he said. "If the core doesn't remain strong, ViewSonic doesn't win, and if new businesses don't emerge, ViewSonic doesn't win. We are looking at doing both."

SYNNEX INCOME UP 50 PERCENT
Synnex beat Wall Street estimates, reporting a 50 percent increase in net income for the third quarter ended Aug. 31 and a 29 percent increase in sales.

The distributor earned $11.5 million, or 38 cents per diluted share, compared with $7.7 million, or 32 cents per share, in the same period a year ago. Analysts had projected net income of 34 cents per share.

Sales were $1.34 billion, compared with $1.04 billion in the same period last year. Analysts had projected $1.28 billion in revenue.

STORAGETEK BUYS STORABILITY
StorageTek has acquired Storability, which develops software for enterprise storage resource management. The move follows Breece Hill's acquisition last Tuesday of Avail Solutions.

Like Breece Hill, StorageTek is buying one of its storage software partners. StorageTek has been bundling Storability's Global Storage Manager software with its tape libraries, including the L180 and L700, both of which are sold through the channel, said Todd Rief, director of corporate strategy for StorageTek.

Storability itself had no reseller business. Instead, it focused on direct sales and used StorageTek as its only reseller, Rief said.

The acquisition helps expand StorageTek's information life-cycle management strategy.

ServGate Debuts EdgeForce M Series Through Dell Network security vendor ServGate this week will unveil a new product family of security products designed and developed exclusively for distribution through Dell.

The products, which comprise the EdgeForce M Series, harness a suite of security services and fall into the new Unified Threat Management integrated security appliance category coined by research firm IDC.

None of the new products will be available to ServGate solution providers before the end of the year. Instead, the devices will be sold solely through Dell, said Atchison Frazer, vice president of corporate marketing at ServGate.

"The simplicity and flexibility of ServGate's EdgeForce M Series establishes a new standard among [integrated] appliances," he said. "[Our] partnership with Dell enables us to leverage the velocity of Dell's power brand while providing SMB customers with a straightforward, scalable network security solution."

At the heart of the new product line is the EdgeForce M30, which greatly simplifies acquiring, deploying and managing a UTM device for SMBs. For $995, this device offers customers an integrated security platform with virus screening by McAfee or Web filtering by SurfControl.

The ServGate announcement is not Dell's first foray into security. Last month, Dell announced a similar distribution deal with IronPort. Dell officials declined to comment on whether the deals were related in any way.

Panda Releases New Network Security Appliances Panda Software launched a series of security network appliances designed to fight viruses, control spam and filter out nonbusiness or unapproved Web surfing. The Panda GateDefender 8000 series includes four devices designed for companies ranging from small businesses to large enterprises.

The devices can scan at speeds up to 30 Mbps and as many as 600,000 messages per hour with a minimum drain on network resources, according to Panda executives. It is designed to protect the corporate network perimeter against viruses, worms and Trojans, detecting and eliminating malicious code in the six most widely used protocols: HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 and NNTP.

In addition, the devices incorporate an antispam engine combining four spam detection techniques, and use Bayesian filtering with more than 300,000 algorithms for reducing false positives. The series also gives administrators control over the use of network resources, allowing them to block access to unsuitable Internet content.

NEWEST THINKPAD INTEGRATES BIOMETRICS TECHNOLOGY
IBM this week plans to introduce a new ThinkPad notebook with an integrated fingerprint reader for data security.

The new ThinkPad T42 notebook will be available Oct. 19 with a list price starting at $1,699.

Clain Anderson, IBM program director, PCD security and wireless, said that the fingerprint reader adds about $50 to the base price of the new ThinkPads. He noted that IBM had been selling plug-in readers for ThinkPads, but those systems cost $100 to $175.

He said that $50 "was the magic price point" for IBM to incorporate the technology directly into ThinkPads.

Anderson said that in addition to security, the fingerprint reader makes it possible for users to enter all of their various log-ons and passwords and activate them by swiping a finger over the reader. "People won't have to think about passwords anymore," he said.

In conjunction with the fingerprint reader, IBM released version 5.4 of its Client Security Software. The new version allows fingerprint identification and complex paraphrases to be used interchangeably or in combination.

RED HAT PICKS UP TWO NETSCAPE TECHNOLOGIES
Linux vendor Red Hat acquired some assets of Netscape's network security software division from America Online.

Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. The products Red Hat acquired include Netscape Directory Server, an LDAP server for storing user profiles, policies and application settings; and Netscape Certificate Management System, a digital certificate-based authentication system.

America Online, which acquired these Netscape assets when it bought the browser vendor, uses both products in its own networks.

Red Hat said it will start marketing the directory server and certificate manager in the next six to 12 months as part of its Open Source Architecture.