New Products

Storix, Inc., recently released SBAdmin v6.2, touted as the first backup and system recovery solution to integrate with IBM's Tivoli Storage Manager (TSM). SBAdmin complements TSM's features and capabilities for Linux and AIX systems. SBAdmin also writes directly to the TSM server, which cuts extraneous steps, saves time and increases reliability. In addition, the application provides TSM users with disaster-recovery capabilities, including a feature called Adaptable System Recovery, which enables a system restore to the same or dissimilar hardware.

www.storix.com

In the near future, Motorola expects 60% of its handsets to run on Linux, and the new MOTOMAGX platform is a means for realizing that goal. Motorola calls MOTOMAGX its “next-generation mobile Linux platform” that will “deliver new levels of openness, flexibility and support for third-party applications” on its devices. The company also hopes to empower its developer community to innovate in exciting ways. Currently, MOTOMAGX supports apps developed in Java ME and will soon support WebUI and native Linux application environments.

www.motorola.com

Here is an audio device that is not brand-new but new to me and hopefully to you too—Trinity Audio Group's Trinity Digital Audio Workstation. This slick, all-in-one device is a portable, professional recording studio that allows one to do anything imaginable with linear audio (for example, sample, edit, mix, play back and so on). Trinity does everything your laptop with an audio interface can do, only more conveniently and portably. Trinity runs on Linux and works with WAV, MP3 and Ogg Vorbis files. Several core audio apps are included, such as Audacity, Hydrogen drum machine, Ardour and more. Built-in 802.11g Wi-Fi lets you podcast from the field.

www.trinityaudiogroup.com

Thankfully, firms like IBM are starting to look at our serious environmental problems as challenges rather than barriers. IBM's new Big Green Linux initiative seeks to leverage Linux and other technologies to reduce costs and energy consumption by building cooler data centers for itself and its customers. Big Green Linux is a subset of IBM's broader, yet similar, Project Big Green. Specifics of Big Green Linux include server consolidation to System x and System p platforms; new efficient products, such as the Information Server Blade; contributions to the Linux kernel (such as tickless low-power state) and others.

www.ibm.com/linux

By the time you flip to this page, SugarCRM will have its sweet new version 5.0 ready for you. This is the ninth major release of the popular commercial open-source customer relationship management package. New features, such as the ability to build custom modules, a new Ajax e-mail client and a Multi-Instance On-Demand architecture, are said to “enhance the ability to build, customize, scale and upgrade the application”. SugarCRM says its innovations are derived from feedback from 2,000 commercial customers and thousands of Open Source community members.

www.sugarcrm.com

Trusted Computer Solutions has long made security solutions for the CIA and other spy agencies in Washington, DC, and now its new product, Security Blanket, aims to harden your Linux system with the same fervor. Trusted Computer Solutions calls Security Blanket “a system lock-down and security management tool that enables systems administrators to configure and enhance the security level of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating platform automatically”. The product's advantage is to simplify the current arduous methods (such as using Bastille) for “hardening” systems. Its menu-driven UI allows one to run either customized profiles or predefined ones that automate industry-standard best practices from the National Institute of Standards and the Center for Internet Security. Security Blanket supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 and 5.

www.trustedcs.com