Macworld Expo Digest: News from Red Rock Software, Exabyte, MetaCommunications

At the Macworld Conference and Expo show that opened Monday, software and hardware vendors including Red Rock Software, Exabyte and MetaCommunications introduced new products targeted at the Macintosh market. The show, at Bostons Hynes Convention Center, runs through July 14 and features user conferences and a floor exhibition of more than 40 vendors, magazines and user groups.

Exabyte Shows Fibre Channel Tape Drive

Exabyte Corp., of Boulder, Colo., showed off its new 221L Plus, a tape drive solution for backup that features native Fibre Channel connectivity. The 221L Plus also includes IBMs third-generation LTO Ultrium tape drive technology (LTO-3) and Exabytes own ExaBotics system.

Resource Library:

The 221L Plus is part of Exabytes 221L Plus Tape Library, which is designed for enterprise-level SAN (storage-area network) usage. The library includes two LTO-3 drives and 21 cartridge slots for a capacity of up to 16.8TB with transfer speeds of over 1.1TB an hour. Exabyte said that native Fibre Channel support does not require an internal bridge or router, eliminating performance bottlenecks. Retail pricing for the 221L Plus Tape Library begins at $17,299.

Red Rock Goes Automator Happy

Salt Lake City-based Red Rock Software introduced at Macworld its DeltaGraph Automator Action, an add-on for the companys DeltaGraph 5.6 graphing software. The Action will work with Automator, a built-in application for Mac OS X 10.4 that automates applications and system functions.

According to Red Rock, the DeltaGraph Automator Action will enable DeltaGraph users to create workflow files for regular DeltaGraph features such as importing data, charting, output, previewing and saving files. The Action is currently available as a "technology preview" at Red Rocks Web site.

MetaCommunications Intros Creative Workgroup Archive Tool

MetaCommunications announced its Digital Storage Manager, which the Boston-based company claims is "the first intranet search and archive management system for creative workgroups." Digital Storage Manager uses a database-drive file storage system to store and search a networks online and offline production files, complete with real-time indexing of the files owners, metadata tags and more.

The product also offers plug-ins for QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, as well as Mac OS Xs Finder. This, the company said, allows users to edit metadata information within applications.

Pricing begins at an introductory price through Oct. 31 of $995 for 100GB of managed storage. Pricing steps up at the 250GB, 1TB, 2.5TB, 5TB and unlimited levels.

For insights on the Mac in the enterprise, check out eWEEK.com Executive Editor Matthew Rothenbergs Weblog.

After the 2003 decision by Apple Computer Inc. not to attend the summer Macworld Expo, vendor participation has dropped compared with the winter Macworld Expo in San Francisco, with no new Apple product announcements.

Representatives of IDG World Expo Corp., organizer of the event, did not return requests for attendance numbers.

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