Briefs: September 4, 2006

JUNIPER, NORTEL SWING WITH TRAPEZE

Trapeze plans to use money from the round D funding to support geographic expansion, bolster its channel programs and expand product development. On the channel front, the new funding will support Trapeze's efforts to recruit new partners and add channel personnel, said Jim Vogt, CEO of Trapeze.

"We're seeing growth, and a key part of that is recruiting and maintaining a channel," Vogt said. As wireless technology becomes ubiquitous, new channels are opening up for Trapeze, Vogt said. For example, applications such as VoIP and location-based services are opening doors to new sets of partners, he said.

The two companies are now investigating options for how Juniper can work with Trapeze's wireless technology, Vogt said. First-time Trapeze investor Juniper was joined in the funding round by Nortel Networks as well as several venture capital firms, which all added to previous investments in the wireless vendor.

APPLE INVITES GOOGLE TOP EXEC TO JOIN BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is taking a seat on the board of directors of Apple Computer, the company said last week.

Schmidt also sits on Google's board and on Princeton University's board of trustees.

"Like Apple, Google is very focused on innovation and we think Eric's insights and experience will be very valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, in a statement.

Schmidt joined Google in 2001 from Novell, where he served as chairman and CEO. Prior to that, he was CTO at Sun Microsystems, where he led the development of Java.

With the addition of Schmidt, Apple's board now has eight members. Fellow board members include Jobs and former Vice President Al Gore.

CISCO BRANCHES OUT WITH NEW WAN OPTIMIZATION PORTFOLIO
Cisco Systems this week plans to roll out its vision for the consolidated branch office with an expansion of its WAN optimization portfolio that adds new appliances and a new module for its branch office access routers.

Cisco's new Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) lineup adds application acceleration and optimization to its existing Wide Area File Services capabilities, said Mark Weiner, director of marketing management for data center solutions at Cisco.

"We're enabling customers to have fewer servers in the branch, to get rid of storage and backup, and allow IT to centralize applications," Weiner said. The product lines expand on technology picked up through Cisco's 2004 acquisition of Actona Technologies, he said.

The new portfolio includes Cisco WAAS software and its lineup of Wide-area Application Engine (WAE) appliances, including the WAE-512 and WAE-612 branch office appliances and WAE-7326 data center appliance. In addition, the new NM-WAE module adds WAAS capabilities to its ISR (Integrated Services Router) family.

The appliances are available now starting at $8,500. The ISR network module is scheduled for availability in the fourth quarter starting at $4,000.

MICROSOFT ADDS NEW FEATURES TO LATEST VIRTUAL SERVER BETA
Microsoft last week posted beta 2 of Windows Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1.

New to the beta is "AMD virtualization compatibility," Active Directory integration, Volume Shadow Service and offline virtual hard disk (VHD) mounting.

Windows Vista will run as a guest operating system when SP1 becomes generally available, scheduled for the first quarter of next year. Beta one hit the streets in May.

Microsoft also rereleased Small Business Server 2003 R2 code to its OEM partners. The company recalled bits released earlier this month because they included some old code.

AVNET ROLLS OUT IBM PORTAL, RFID PARTNERSHIP AT CONFAB
Avnet Technology Solutions and IBM are teaming on an interactive Web portal designed to train partners selling IBM and Avnet solutions.

Unveiled at the distributor's partner conference in San Antonio last week, the portal, called Ignition Online, highlights four areas of training for partners, including basic product information, sales skills, information on how to do business with IBM and how to do business with Avnet. Solution providers also can link to specific information on IBM's Partner World Online and Avnet's Channel Connection Web portals.

Ignition Online is a response to feedback at Avnet's partner conference last year where partners expressed a desire to streamline training on products and the ways in which IBM and Avnet work together, the mastery of which could take rookie sales reps up to two years.

In addition, Avnet is partnering with Data Systems International to create mobile solutions that combine hardware and software for automated data capture and bar-code and RFID technology. The solution combines DSI's dcLink software, x86 servers, wireless data capture hardware and underlying infrastructure elements. Also included are software maintenance, hardware warranties, training, implementation and support services.

TAPE CONSOLIDATION CONTINUES AS TANDBERG BUYS EXABYTE
The consolidation of the tape industry continued last week as Tandberg Data agreed to acquire Exabyte in a $28 million deal.

It was the second major move to consolidate the tape industry in as many weeks, following the close the week prior of Quantum's $770 million acquisition of ADIC.

The two acquisitions come during a crucial time for the tape industry, as the growth in disk-to-disk backup and archiving, as well as the increasing use of online services for backup and archiving, threatens tape's dominance in this space.

With the acquisition, Tandberg gains access to Exabyte's VXA tape technology, along with new tape autoloaders and small tape libraries. Both companies offer tape automation products using LTO tape drives. Tandberg also gets Exabyte's OEM relationship with Apple to go with its own OEM partnership with Dell. Both count IBM and Fujitsu-Siemens as OEM partners.

Tandberg also gets access to a larger channel in the United States, as the two companies had little overlap in their channel partner base.