Infrastructure

Superb video and audio quality at a steep price

Security researchers and experts this week cautioned network administrators to consider carefully whether they need to implement network access control (NAC) technology in their security infrastructure before buying in to the current hype surrounding it.

By automating its forecasting system retailer Loblaw Companies Ltd. is freeing up its staff to spend more time on the floor with customers, and making sure items those customers are looking for are actually on the shelves.

Despite a boardroom scandal that seems to deepen every day, Hewlett-Packard Co. has won new contracts this week, including one that could be worth US$5 billion over the next 10 years.

Oracle Corp. is making content and records management tools available to users of its database in a bid to gain share in the base-level content management software market.

The promise of desktop virtualization technology is to centralize applications at the datacentre to make them easier to manage and provision -- stretching hardware resources and keeping nagging software conflicts to a minimum in the bargain. In some cases, the same technology helps accomplish all three, bringing greater control and flexibility to IT without users mourning the loss of "their" beloved desktops.

Business intelligence (BI) is becoming more critical to decision-making across the enterprise, according to an executive survey. The survey showed 41 per cent of firms polled were using BI to make more than half the decisions in the company.

Hewlett Packard Co. says its new unified storage system for small and medium scale businesses (SMBs) combines the benefits of storage area networks (SAN), and network attached storage (NAS).