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VoIP
Although there were plenty of "big iron" VoIP products
at the show, both D-Link and SMC were also showing VoIP
products. SMC had a VoIP gateway (the
VIP04) which will sell for about $2000. It connects
between a PBX and network WAN connection and can automatically route
voice-quality calls between similarly equipped locations. This can save a
company lots of $ in long distance phone charges and doesn't require anyone
else's servers or service to work.
D-Linkwas also showing a few VoIP boxes,
mainly to test the market waters, but weren't announcing any formal products
yet.
Of course, Multitech
has been doing this VoIP stuff for awhile and had new single channel
and multi-channel T1/E1 gateways on display.
Powerline
Neither the HomePlug
Alliance nor any powerline networking companies were at the show.
But as I talked with the usual suspects, it sure sounded like folks would be
placing their HomePlug bets with Intellon's
PowerPacket-based chipset. First products are still supposed to be showing
up later this year, but I haven't had any offers of eval units yet!
Small
is beautiful...
Although it's not really a networking product, I stopped by CMS'
booth and checked out the new version of their ABS (Automatic Backup System) for
notebook computers. The ABSplus
is basically a hard drive (they have various sized models) attached to a PC card
interface that you plug into your laptop. First time you plug in, it scans
the drive and backs everything (or just what you want) up. On subsequent
connections, it just does an incremental backup. The ABS product has been
out for a year or so, but the "plus" capability that is just being
introduced adds the ability to either boot from the external ABS drive
or do a restore of the ABS' contents onto a blank, formatted hard drive.
You can also use the ABSplus to copy the same drive image to multiple drives.
Pricing direct from CMS ranges from $329 for a 6GB ABS to $700
for 30GB. This little guy could really save your butt sometime
when you think about the abuse that your notebook's drive takes on a daily
basis!
Last, but not least, is Celestix'
Aries Multifunction Server Appliance. It's a Linux-powered
server in a box that you can easily hold in your hand and supports Windows
file and printer sharing, Web and Email serving, shared
Internet access and more for about $1000, depending on
how much memory and hard drive you buy. Although it has a friendly
web-based admin interface for non-Linux folks, you can dive in and tweak
whatever you want if the "L" word doesn't scare you. We hope to
be looking at this one sometime soon, but meantime, Network
Computing's review should hold you over.
