the Pipeline

Stacking up to the competition

Disk Stakka, a new Imation product, sounds like something from the furniture store Ikea. But it's actually an automated carousel that stores, manages and retrieves CDs and DVDs.

The unit connects to a computer via a USB port for both data and power, which means there's no power cord or brick to cause problems. It holds up to 100 discs, but if that's not enough, you can stack up to five to create a tower that can hold 500 discs.

Still not enough? You can use powered USB hubs to control more than 100 towers (that's more than 50,000 discs, but who's counting?) from one computer.

Don't panic about how to locate content with that many discs. Disc Stakka comes with OptiTracker content management software, which includes a database and search engine.

OptiTracker lets you browse your discs and their content the same way you browse files and folders in Microsoft Windows.

The search engine helps you quickly locate discs and files and ejects the disc you need. You can search by title, keyword, directory or file name.

The Disk Stakka costs $149.

Increase your mobility securely

The wireless world is getting wackier. More organizations are deploying mission-critical applications to their mobile workforces. Those include field force automation systems and full-function, line-of-business applications.

All of that wireless information floating around needs protection, which is where NetMotion Wireless' Mobility XE Version 6.5 comes in.

The latest version of the company's mobile virtual private networking solution includes new policy management features and increased speed, thanks to built-in Web browsing acceleration.

"We've dramatically expanded the capability of an IT administrator to fine-tune policy," said John Knopf, head of product management.

The policies are dynamic and apply to different conditions, such as the time of day.

The new management features allow administrators to maintain control over security and productivity through a fine-tuned level of customization.

That control includes nine new conditions and five new actions. The conditions include Service Set Identifier, which is useful for setting hot spot rules, and Basic Service Set Identifier, which can be used for corporate wireless local-area network (LAN) rules.

New time conditions, which users can implement based on their time zone, allow them to specify or block actions during a specific time. Administrators can, for example, schedule updates during off hours.

New actions include the ability to access LANs without compromising security and a message balloon that notifies users of policy changes that affect the system's behavior.

Another important new feature is Web image acceleration, which is now a native function of the software. This feature enables faster Web browsing by compressing images in the HyperText Transfer Protocol stream.

Mobility XE 6.5 costs $15,000 for 100 devices or $105,000 for 1,000 devices.