IBM launches Tivoli Capacity Manager
IBM announced service management software, tools and business partner resources to help organizations address the vexing complexity, performance bottlenecks and disparate technologies that make it difficult to deliver services, from approving a loan to delivering video to a cell phone.
IBM Tivoli Capacity Process Manager is designed to help customers reduce network slowdowns and outages by better predicting computing capacity and performance.
This is the newest member of IBM’s family of Process Managers that automate workflows in functional areas such as availability, release and storage management. IBM Tivoli Capacity Process Manager will be available in the fourth quarter of 2006.
IBM also announced a new version of its Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database (CCMDB) software, which includes software acquired from Collation. This is open standards-based software that integrates accurate and up-to-date IT information spread across the enterprise — including details about servers, storage devices, networks, middleware, applications and data. IBM CCMDB aims to help companies use IT Infrastructure Library best practices for service management.
IBM’s Tivoli CCMDB provides customers with a real-time dashboard – for example, so insurance companies can see how a change in an IT system is preventing a claim from being processed. According to IBM, up to 85 per cent of IT problems are caused by changes to application infrastructure, such as security patches – and not by hardware or application failures. Such changes wreak havoc on interconnected systems and are hard to pinpoint and fix without the centralized view provided by this software. The new version of the IBM CCMDB will be available in October.
IBM also announced two new tools, available now, that help customers adopt service management.
The IBM Service Management Self-Assessment Toolkit, a no-cost online tool that helps customers determine where to start and what to focus on when they move to a service management environment. It rates the importance of more than 30 process areas, such as how well a change management process avoids IT glitches.
The IBM Tivoli Unified Process Composer, a “starter kit” that provides detailed information to help organizations adopt service management and customize specific processes.
Adobe’s Contribute 4 makes room for blogging
Adobe Systems Inc. announced immediate availability of Adobe Contribute 4 software, an update to its web publishing solution designed for business, education and government workers to easily and safely contribute content to the Web without having to learn HTML.
Key features in Adobe Contribute 4 include new blog publishing capabilities, unified Web publishing, enhanced Microsoft Office integration for Windows users, and Adobe Flash video support.
The new unified Web publishing feature of Adobe Contribute 4 enables users to post and publish content to multiple Web sites and blogs, all from a single application. Because of its visually intuitive authoring capabilities content authors and contributors can edit or update Web sites and blogs quickly and easily. Users can also work offline without losing content changes due to a dropped connection or browser ‘Back’ button.
Because Adobe Contribute 4 works seamlessly with Macromedia Dreamweaver from Adobe, site administrators give authoring permission and can maintain Web site integrity, and look-and-feel even when multiple authors update content across the site. Windows users using Adobe Contribute 4 also have a new ability to post and publish content to their Web sites and blogs directly from within Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel and Outlook, further eliminating extra steps and reducing editing time.
Contribute also supports the most popular blog servers — Blogger, Typepad, and WordPress — and gives the option of connecting to in-house blog servers, straight out of the box. Rich media support has been enhanced in Adobe Contribute 4 enabling users to drag and drop images, movies, and now Adobe Flash video files into their Web pages or blog entries. In addition, users can publish content from a browser to their Web site and blog. Contribute maintains the original formatting and automatically posts the source for the content as well as a link.
Lenovo adds to 3000 desktop line
Lenovo announced the latest model in its Lenovo 3000 desktop PC line-up – the Lenovo 3000 J115 desktop. The new model is one more way Lenovo is providing small business users an affordable, worry-free computing experience. The Vista-capable J115 desktop comes equipped with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor compatible with AMD’s socket AM2 platform, up to 4GB of DDR2 Memory and an optional 19-inch Widescreen LCD-TFT.
The J115 desktop utilizes up to 4GB of DDR2 memory and a 250GB 7200 rpm SATA Hard Drive with the potential to support up to 500GB. This, combined with the socket AM2 AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core processor, boosts energy efficiency, resulting in a cooler, quieter-running system with reliable performance.
Unique safeguards to protect important data also come with the J115 as part of Lenovo’s worry-free computing experience. Other additional software applications are preloaded for extra safety and improved usability. The J115 desktop also automates many routine security and maintenance tasks though a unique set of Lenovo Care productivity tools. These tools help alleviate the need to call a dedicated IT help desk by offering a central location for essential PC tasks, Lenovo said.
The Lenovo 3000 J115 desktop will be available this month. Prices for the J115 desktop start at $649. Lenovo 3000 products will mostly be sold through Lenovo business partners and directly via the Web.
