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The article reports on the introduction of Microsoft Office 2007 to information technology (IT) industry from Microsoft Corp. IT professionals are facing a great challenge towards their approach on weighing the benefits and features of the new user interface. According to the survey conducted, 46 percent of respondents expressed no change in productivity with the use of the application while 24 percent indicated the benefits offered by the new software. The Office provides new resources which include Office Migration Planning Manager, the IT Resource Kit, and various electronic learning features available for users. However, training should be provided to users to gain knowledge on the features offered by the application. INSET: THE LOWDOWN on Office 2007.

The article reports on issues related to the move of companies to migrate business applications to Linux platforms in the U.S. It tackles the opposition of some companies which concluded that changing their operating system to Linux was a dubious business proposition. It cites the issue that some businesses are not satisfied with the quality of the administrative tools available for the Linux environment and that the system does not work for every application. The perspectives of executives related to the issue are presented.

This article features NetScout Systems Inc.'s Progressive Analytics offering, a statistical tool that learns normal network behavior over time and spots and diagnoses anomalies long before conventional tools are aware of them. Traditional products are based on simple rules, such as sounding an alarm if percentage utilization of a resource or response time rises to some predetermined level. Users are encouraged to set the thresholds high to avoid false alerts. But Protective Analytics detects anomalies by analyzing network traffic in real time and comparing it to normal patterns of behavior.

This article reports that Cisco Systems Inc. (CSI) will announce a package of hardware and software designed to make it simpler and less expensive for small and midsize businesses to set up Internet protocol (IP)-based networks, including voice over IP systems. The new offering, dubbed the Cisco Business Communications Solution, includes two Catalyst series switches, one for small businesses with up to 250 workers, and the other for companies with 250 to 1,500 workers. In addition, CSI is adding three new IP phones and a dozen software tools supporting tasks such as network monitoring and voice provisioning, plus revised versions of four existing products.

This article features the Intelligent Bricks hardware and Kybos software experimented by the research team at IBM Corp.'s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California. Researchers are creating an intelligent storage system architecture that will make data easier to manage, lower maintenance costs, and reduce environmental impacts such as cooling, power, floor space, and noise. The basic unit of the scalable hardware is called a brick. Each brick contains a processor, some disks and an Ethernet switch chip. Bricks are placed next to one another and communicate with their neighbors without cables or connectors by using capacitive couplers on each brick face, forming an three-dimensional, high-speed mesh network.

This article reports that Cisco Systems Inc. plans to announce an upgrade of the Internetworking Operating System software for its flagship Catalyst 6500 Series switches, supporting increased modularity that is designed to improve operational efficiency for information technology managers. The new features should enable faster restarts of the switches and reduce the time it takes users to install software upgrades. The updated switch offering is based on technology built into the CRS-1 carrier-class routing system that the company introduced.