Small-Business Storage Gets Mac-Friendly

Maxtor, Milpitas, Calif., makers of enterprise, network and desktop storage devices, unveiled its Maxtor Shared Storage Plus solution with support for Mac OS X version 10.4 Tiger. The backup product is scheduled to ship next month and allows small-office networks of up to 20 users to share, stream, print and backup files.

Software vendor Atempo, Palo Alto, Calif., announced that its Time Navigator Security and Compliance Manager now supports Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger Server. The software, which protects and allows users to monitor data on a network, also includes an installer for Mac OS X, a new Mac OS X user interface and a dashboard widget.

Applied Micro Circuits, Sunnyvale, Calif., used Macworld as a launching point for its entrance into the Mac storage market with RAID technology for the PowerMac G5 Quad workstation called the 3ware Sidecar External RAID. Conference attendees were given a peek at the storage appliance that is expected to ship in the second quarter.

“The Macintosh storage market has been largely ignored by the major storage players,” said Greg Schulz, founder and storage consultant at StorageIO based in Stillwater, Minn., in a statement. “[Applied Micro Circuits&'] entry into the Macintosh storage market will be welcomed by Mac users who require enterprise-like functionality with greater storage performance and capacity for applications such as digital video capture, post-production and graphics.”

These releases demonstrate the shift in the marketplace to introduce products with enterprise-like quality and performance into the small- to midsize-business market.