PC World Business

The leading film studios and Channel 7 have taken legal action against iiNet claiming the ISP is complicit in the infringement of their copyrighted material.

Citrix has bought Vapps, a provider of high-definition voice conferencing services geared for businesses and service providers.

Cisco's the king of network security, commanding almost a quarter share of the worldwide US$6.8 billion network security market, according to IDC. But can it hold the fort?

Ribbit Monday released for general availability its Web telephony platform, designed to extend telephony development to the world's Web developers through the use of its APIs (application programming interfaces).

OEM reference supplier Fulcrum Microsystems has unveiled a 10Gbit/sec. Ethernet data center switch design that vendors can use to make "lossless" alternatives to Fibre Channel fabrics.

Are you one of those unlucky souls who enjoys decent mobile phone reception when you're out and about, but can't get a signal at home or in the office? You're not alone. Indoor phone calls have long been a weak point of cellular coverage.

Using teleconferencing technology has lately become an obvious and financially practical choice to offset rising business travel expenses. Yet sometimes simple chatting doesn't cut it. There has been growing interest in the notion of online conferencing with a "virtual presence" emphasis, which enables people to share information and their very selves with one another with a stronger sense of near-tangible "face time."

Integration of traditional on-premises Notes-based collaboration, new unified communications tools, Symphony productivity applications, content management, Web-based services and the potential to mash it all together with new-fangled development tools and social networking innovations pouring out of IBM's research labs are just a few of the challenges facing IBM's Lotus Software division chief, Bob Picciano.

Just because you don't have a large enterprise doesn't mean you can't run your IT operation like the big guys. Here are seven ways to help your SMB--a small or medium-size business--implement some of the lessons big IT operations have learned over the years. Using these tips, you should be able to improve productivity, cut costs, and keep your business running smoothly.

The digital Disneyland of the future -- where we freely work and play online -- may be at risk. Why? Because, some argue, broadband carriers can't support it. The Internet's "free ride" culture has led to more people downloading gigabytes of data at practically no cost. Even if broadband infrastructure's capacity doubled or tripled, there's no avoiding the equivalent of an abrupt work stoppage.

Not long ago, the powers-that-be detected an impending crisis. To resolve it, they rushed into action crafting a proposal that represented an unprecedented upheaval of existing infrastructure. On the grounds that "something needed to be done" to avert the crisis, they brushed aside objections that the upheaval was too convulsive and might nonetheless fail to address the underlying issues that had created the crisis in the first place.

The world's richest and most powerful 10-year-old says it can handle far more of your technology needs than you think. Google started almost exactly 10 years ago, and it is making big noise about invigorated Apps and some Googlers called to tell me about the improvements.

An Ethernet patent dispute is again rearing its ugly head in court this week as Intel has filed suit against patent licensing firm Negotiated Data Solutions (N-Data) looking to indemnify Intel customers against any royalty claims N-Data is looking to grab.

Naked home workers may be the stuff of fantasy, but flexible working is now a corporate reality. Ready availability of broadband combined with the reliability and speed of wireless communications has transformed home and remote working.

It's a wireless world, some say, conveniently overlooking the giant balls of cables behind every personal computer and every server, router and printer. But many want to expand the wireless world, so let's look at two companies doing just that.

Recent outages affecting Google Apps have received a disproportionately large amount of coverage from the technology press, resulting in a misperception about the stability of this hosted collaboration and communication suite.

Amid the current economic doldrums, Juniper just posted third quarter revenue (up 29 percent to US$947 million) and earnings (US$148.5 million, up 75 percent). Barely seven weeks into the job, new CEO Kevin Johnson, a 16-year Microsoft veteran, spoke with Jim Duffy about what's driving the company's momentum.

VeriSign is in many ways synonymous with managing the Web, thanks to its handling of key DNS root servers and of name resolution for .com, .net, and other domains. In recent years, it's had both strong ups and strong downs.

We posed a few questions to Russ Housley, chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force, about why the standards body is developing network address translations for IPv6 when IPv6 was supposed to eliminate the need for NATs on the Internet. Here's what Housley had to say.

John McCool took over for Jayshree Ullal when the longtime and very visible Cisco data center chief resigned in May. McCool is no stranger though -- he came to Cisco in the Granite Networks acquisition during the industry's Gigabit Ethernet boom in the 1990s. Weeks into his new job as senior vice president of data center, switching and security, McCool shared some of Cisco's plans and visions with Managing Editor Jim Duffy.

One great reason to network your business PCs is to share printers. Printers that connect directly to the network via ethernet constitute one of the most brilliant innovations ever. Simply plug a printer in and turn it on, and soon it is available to every computer on the network.

I just spent a considerable amount of time troubleshooting a network glitch between two PCs on my network.

It's great to have multiple computers. On the first of them, you can install a database or crunch spreadsheets. On another, you can simply browse the Web, listen to music, and check your e-mail. Yet another can have a supercharged configuration for playing games. Sure, you could have all of your programs on the same, single computer, but some applications -- such as games -- can't run concurrently with other programs.

Microsoft's newly released Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 is generating plenty of buzz around the Web, but there are a few things you should know before you decide to install it. The update, released late Wednesday, comes with some caveats.

Chat is cheap. Videoconferencing, on the other hand, gives your online conversations a more personal feeling. For telecommuting, keeping in touch with clientele, calling home from a business trip, or just checking in with out-of-state relatives, you're never more than a smile away if you have a Webcam and some free software. I'll explain how to get started, and I'll also offer some helpful tips for getting the most out of your video chats.

New exploits against VoIP continue to emerge, but experts say these demonstrations reveal the need for vigilant security and are not fatal flaws to the technology.

For the majority of those looking to upgrade to broadband Internet for the business or home, it's all about the extra speed.

No more getting tangled up just trying to check your e-mail. The wireless age is here, and it offers lightning fast broadband with nothing to tie you down.

Voice over IP is exactly what its name suggests. It is voice communication that is transmitted over an Internet Protocol (IP) service.

If you have multiple computers around the home or office and want to network them together to share an ADSL Internet connection then this guide is for you.