Macs attract new support from . . .

. . . IT vendors that contend that Apple Computer Inc."s desktops are on the rebound inside big organizations. "We"ve been impressed with the resurgence of the (Macintosh) platform. It"s gaining momentum," says Bennett Griffin, CEO of Griffin Technologies LLC, a security vendor in Lawrence, Kan. At this week"s Macworld conference in San Francisco, Griffin"s company will release its US$129 SecuriKey Professional Edition product, which combines a 1-in.-long USB encryption device and client software to protect data on Macs. That could be useful when a Mac laptop is lost or stolen, or if you keep ultrasecret data on your G5 desktop. Without the USB dongle and a password, the data is inaccessible, Griffin claims. He says his bigger customers have been asking for help securing Macs along with Windows machines. Griffin"s engineers are also developing an enterprise edition that will let systems administrators centrally manage SecuriKey devices from Macs. The admin console is available only for Windows now.

Even though IT shops have spent years trying to rid their companies of Macs, the pesky systems just won"t go away, says John Dean, director of marketing at Atempo Inc. "People talk about consolidating under one platform, but I don"t see it happening," he says. France-based Atempo is a 12-year-old vendor of Windows backup software that opened a U.S. office last year in Palo Alto, Calif. At Macworld, the company will unveil Time Navigator 3.7, which can back up and restore data to Mac OS X servers. Like Griffin, Atempo was pushed by large customers, such as Raytheon Co. and France Telecom SA, to add Mac support, Dean says. Mac users get Time Navigator"s full capabilities, such as encryption of data during backups and self-service file-restore rights for end users. Pricing starts at less than $5,000.

Multimedia means multiple file formats . . .

. . . and all the incompatibility that goes with them. That"s why New York-based TransMedia Corp. offers Colaborata, which CEO Donald Leka describes as a "compatibility engine." According to Leka, Colaborata lets you place any file into an "upload window" that links to the service, which then translates the file into a format viewable on your PC or Mac. Colaborata 2.5.3, which is due to ship late this month, adds a feature that lets you load digital media content into a shared calendar, call a meeting for people inside and outside your organization and ensure that everyone will be able to view all the information. Pricing is $60 a month per user.

Virtualization tools reach down to PCs . . .

. . . with a beta tool from VMware Inc., a Palo Alto-based division of EMC Corp. Called VMware Ace, the $99-per-seat program lets you set end-user rights on PCs used by contractors, temps, mobile users and others. You can specify the networks that a device can access and create secure containers so that, for example, mobile users linked to networks outside your firewall can"t release unapproved data or compromise their systems by accepting malware. But Michael Mullany, vice president of marketing at VMware, argues that the biggest growth potential for his business remains in the data center. "People are looking at acres of Windows and Linux servers and seeing utilization rates in the 2 percent to 15 percent range," he claims. Mullany suggests that you can save 30 percent on hardware, 20 percent on software licenses and up to a whopping 70 percent on operations management costs through an aggressive server virtualization program. Customers seeking savings like that helped boost VMware"s revenue from $100 million in 2003 to more than $235 million last year, according to Wall Street estimates. Can that kind of growth sustain itself in 2005? "Oh yeah," Mullany says.

Centralized control of PHP servers . . .

. . . is now possible with Zend Platform. The new software, available today, has a central console that alerts admins if there"s trouble with applications based on PHP, the open-source scripting language. Zend Platform also can take you to the exact lines of code responsible for the flub, according to Pamela Roussos, vice president of marketing at Zend Technologies Inc. in Cupertino, Calif., which is the primary developer of PHP. Roussos says Zend Platform works with Zend Studio 4.0, an integrated development environment that"s set for release on Feb. 14. Zend Platform also comes with a J2EE integration module that lets you tie PHP components to ones written in Java. Subscription pricing begins at $995 per year.