Wednesday, 30 July 2008 4:57 PM
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GOOGLE has snatched what is believed to be its biggest single client in the world - the NSW Department of Education - away from its rival Microsoft to claim up to 1.3 million new users of its free email product.
The NSW Director-General of Education, Michael Coutts-Trotter, said the department had exploited its size to get the best deal for students and teachers, who will each receive customised Gmail accounts.
"Our new email contract was so big that global players like Google were prepared to put together a world-class package of services for the children and young people in NSW public schools," he said.
The acting Minister for Education, John Hatzistergos, said the new system would cater for 1.3 million users and be in place by the end of the year.
The $9.5 million, three-year contract with the Google partner SMS Management and Technology will displace the department's previous $30 million contract with Microsoft partner Unisys, which ran over five years.
Although Google offers Gmail to education providers free, SMS Management and Technology said there were significant costs associated with providing tight security and integrating the email system with the department's existing portal.
"This will be one of the biggest Gmail deployments in the world," said its spokesman, Matthew Kaufman, who said Macquarie University had also recently signed up for Gmail.
The US-based information technology analyst Matthew Cain, from Gartner, said it was no secret why Microsoft and Google are "assiduously courting" the .edu community with free email services.
"If the vendors can get students to sign up for email accounts, the hope is they will then use those accounts for life," Mr Cain said. "Students, alumni, staff and faculty all represent a highly desirable demographic that advertisers will pay top dollar to reach."
The department's chief information officer, Stephen Wilson, said there would be no advertising on the new email accounts, which would be supported by tough filtering and security software.
Students will be able to log on from home. But whereas each had access to 35 gigabytes of memory on their account previously, they now have six gigabytes.
"I think we are the largest single-enterprise user of Gmail," Mr Wilson said.
"[The deal is] a first in Australian education and a lot of other states are very interested."
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Wednesday, 9 July 2008 9:30 AM
Taken From the Seagate Website
To address the growing consumer need for storage in the home, Seagate
(NYSE: STX) today announced the Maxtor® Central Axis™ network drive, a
network storage drive that can be used by the whole family. This latest
drive from Seagate provides a terabyte of storage that every computer
in the home can back up to. In addition to media streaming capabilities
for video, photos and music, the new Maxtor Central Axis network drive
also includes an easy-to-use remote access service that allows people
to easily and securely retrieve content stored on their network drive
through any Internet browser.
A concept once only reserved for the small business and enterprise
space, networked storage is increasingly becoming a viable option for
multiple-computer homes. According to Yankee Group's 2008 Device
Survey, of those who purchased network routers for the home, 75.9% did
so with the intent of providing multiple computers with access to the
Internet. The challenge of these multi-computer households is the
ability to share and back up files from each computer. Maxtor Central
Axis network drive allows for each computer in the home to be
automatically backed up, so important files and precious memories are
sheltered from virus infections or disc drive failures. Sharing files
from computer to computer is easy when there is one repository for any
file that you would like to share. Additionally, since the storage
device is connected to the router and not formatted for an individual
computer, files can be accessed and stored from both Mac OS X and
Windows operated PCs.
"The days of external storage simply
serving as an extension to a full hard drive are over - the era of
personal digital content has seen to that," said Josh Martin, senior
analyst of Yankee Group's Media and Entertainment devices. "Survey data
indicates that over 41% of recent external storage buyers did so to
back up their data not because they ran out of room on the primary
computer. With the emotional connection people have to their photos and
videos, I believe the trend will only continue."
The Maxtor
Central Axis network drive liberates content that was once trapped on
individual computers. This easy to use solution enables multimedia file
sharing from every computer in the home as well as from common
entertainment devices, which are DLNA compliant, such as Microsoft®
Xbox® 360™ and Sony® PlayStation® 3™. Watching home movies, viewing
pictures of the last family vacation and listening to music can now all
be enjoyed in the living room through networked console players instead
of having guests crowd around a computer monitor in the den or a small
laptop computer screen. This storage device helps put your digital
entertainment back in a room where the whole family can enjoy it.
"Our Central Axis solution is a snap to set up and use for nearly every
member of the family. Any household with a network would benefit from
having a way to back up every PC in the home and share files between
them," said BenHur Castor, director of product line management for
Seagate's Consumer Solution Division. "Back up is essential to make
certain photos, videos and other important files live beyond the life
of an individual computer. The Central Axis network drive provides a
complete solution for back up storage as well as file sharing in the
home and from the road."
In addition to providing networked
access to important files, Maxtor Central Axis network drive provides a
way to easily share and access files when you are not on the network.
With the ever-growing dependence on access to information and digital
content, whether that be multimedia content, spreadsheets or
business-related documents, you'll find there are times when you'll
need to access these files remotely. Retrieving content that is saved
to a network drive when you are not local to the network has always
raised concerns about security and complexity. Most applications
involve installing software on the computer accessing the drive. Many
remote access applications also require a breach in a firewall, leaving
the network and your data open and vulnerable to attack.
With
Maxtor Central Axis, you can easily log into the remote access service
from an Internet browser to securely access and share the files stored
on the networked storage drive. There are no applications to download
or plug-ins required. Central Axis establishes a secure connection to
the service without the need to disable firewalls. All that is needed
to access the drive from any Web browser is a username and password.
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