Emerging Technology XChange Roundup

VARBusiness

The next Xchange conference is the Solution Provider Xchange March 9th in New Orleans.

Lexmark World Premier
Lexmark International used a little "mojo" Sunday evening for the opening event at Emerging Technologies Xchange on Amelia Island, Fla. The world premier showed off Lexmark's new Multi Function Product (MFP) series as Randy Nelson, vice president of U.S. marketing for Lexmark, and Jean Hodge, Lexmark channels marketing manager, spoofed "Austin Powers" and dressed as characters from the popular comedy franchise. Complete with tacky costumers, over-the-top accents, goofy video feeds and fireworks, the world premier displayed the Lexmark X820e MFP, a network printer foundation with a touch screen, printing speeds of 45 pages per minute, and copy, fax and scan-to-e-mail functions, and the X750e MFP, a lower-cost model with similar capabilities and speeds of 20 pages per minute.

Lexmark officials said they hope to woo VARs looking for new document management, copying and printing solutions. The company is also offering a new rebate program, called Profit Plus, that offers channel partners up to 5 percent cash back on printer or printer option sales to eligible small and medium business customers.

General Session: What Is Hot, What Is Not
The panel, moderated by Frank Ohlhorst, senior technology editor of CRN Test Center and David Strom, technology editor of VARBusiness, identified seven technology areas that are poised for growth and hold potential for the channel: wireless, network security, Gigabit Ethernet, network printing, Web services, storage and servers, and platform and processors. The panel included Mark Eppley, CEO of Laplink, Art Steinberg, national VAR sales and systems manager for D&H Distributing, and Wendy Petty, vice president of marketing at FalconStor.

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The panel outlined opportunities within the seven technology markets, such as new 802.11 standards for wireless, emerging areas of network security such as federated identity management and the increased need for improved speeds for the latest applications via Gigabit Ethernet backbones. The panel also discussed the growth of open source software and storage management and backup software.

3Com presentation
3Com introduced its new XRN (expandable Resilient Network) technology strategy, which the company says is a new way to build LAN cores by leveraging multiple Gigabit Ethernet switches that behave as a single distributed fabric. For example, the 3Com Switch 4060 supports XRN technology and is capable of creating a distributed fabric with another XRN-capable switch, such as a Switch 4050 or any of the SuperStack 3 Switch 4900 family, for a highly resilient, scalable LAN core. 3Com's new "pay-as-you-grow" approach allows an enterprise to expand the core of the network as required, saving up-front costs. "The strategy allows customers to buy smaller switches and intelligently combine them rather than investing in larger, more expensive technology," said Erik Papin, central area services manager for 3Com. "We feel the solution is easily scaled up to the enterprise level."

Rainbow Technologies' presentation
Security technology vendor Rainbow Technologies, which recently shifted from a direct sales and OEM model to a channel-focused business, introduced itself and some of its cutting-edge security technology to solution providers. Luis Curet, vice president of sales at Rainbow, said the channel will help Rainbow get better traction in the security technology market and overcome a tough IT spending environment. "After Sept. 11, we learned something: a lot of discussions and lots of attention didn't translate into closed deals or revenue," Curet said. "We need to take the complexity out off security solutions."

Rainbow, which specializes in secure access, encryption and authentication, recently launched its newest product, Netswift iGate. The appliance-based solution, which sits behind the firewall but in front of the Web server, offers SSL encryption and key-based access control to protect Web applications. Rainbow also introduced its partner program, which launched about six months ago. The Real Partner Alliance program offers channel, solution and technology vendor partners certification, training, education, sales support and co-branding on joint solutions.

Panel: Making Money from Network Security
The panel, moderated by Strom, focused on ways to sell network security solutions. It featured Brian Cohen, CEO of SPIdynamics, Curet, and Chris Fleck, chairman of Omni Cluster. The group discussed major vulnerabilities in the enterprise, such as the widespread number of unsecured wireless networks, as well as common methods of hacking and cyber-intrusion, such as "war driving," where hackers, driving in a car, use mobile computer and break into vulnerable wireless networks (also know as "drive-by hacking"). One of the most pressing concerns for customers, the panel said, was user authentication and authorization within the enterprise. Despite the importance of security and the increased concern over the last year, the panelists said most enterprises are still reluctant to adopt security technology because of its complexity and cost.

Panel: Signs of Change in Storage Technologies
The panel, moderated by VARBusiness senior editor Sonia Lelii, discussed hot topics like storage IP, API standards and storage management software. Panelists included Wendy Petty, vice president of sales at FalconStor Software; Robert Stout, area vice president at Nishan Systems and Calvin Hsu, a product manager at DataCore Software.

The best advice the panelists gave to integrators and solutions providers? Sell services. Customers have spent the last three or four years loading up on storage capacity, which has now brought on a management problem that many hope management software will solve. If only the hardware vendors would learn to cooperate. In the meantime, customers are now looking for services that can help them build solutions to use storage more efficiently and cut costs.

Interland presentation
Business class Web hosting firm Interland updated solution providers on new developments with the Atlanta-based company. Interland has targeted the small and midsize business market with its strategic Web and application hosting services, and has increased its concentration on the channel as well. Tiffani Bova, Interland's new vice president of channel sales and marketing, introduced blueHALO (high-availability load optimization), a new network architecture designed to improve the security and reliability of shared Web hosting for businesses. BlueHALO includes redundant firewalls and load balancers to reduce the strain on networks, as well as multiple Web server arrays to prevent failures and duplicate NAS units that offer improved storage speeds and recovery capabilities. The blueHALO shared hosting service, available on either Windows or Linux servers, starts as low as $19.95 a month.

Panel: Web Services and the Evolution of Software Development
The panel, moderated by VARBusiness associate editor Rob Wright, examined the growth of Web services standards such as XML, SOAP and UDDI and how solution providers can take advantage of the standards and open source software. The panel included Kevin Carlson, chief technology officer of Verteris, Roland Pinto, CEO of Globabilities, and Andre Tost, WebSphere business development manager at IBM Software.

The panel discussed how to separate Web services marketing hype from real opportunities around XML and other standards, which have become increasingly popular in lowering proprietary software boundaries and reducing integration headaches. Panel members also discussed how the application server has become an intricate part of Web services infrastructure, different ways to deploy Web services without massive software development and code rewriting, and the emergence of several vendor languages such as Sun Microsystems' Java and Microsoft's .Net, which has opened up new opportunities for the channel but also created a confusing and sometimes chaotic market.