Seagate Technology LLC in Scotts Valley, Calif., last week announced the first portable hard drive based on perpendicular recording technology. The vendor also announced a 500GB Serial ATA push-button backup hard drive. The Seagate 160GB Portable Hard Drive will be available next month and will retail for US$379. The Seagate 500GB eSATA PushButton Hard Drive will be available in April.

Parlano updates MindAlign IM app

Parlano Inc. has announced that Version 6.3 of its MindAlign enterprise instant messaging application is now available. It features enhanced secure connectivity to the AOL, Yahoo and MSN IM networks. It also offers enhanced integration with Microsoft Active Directory to provide simple and consistent management of user and group identities between MindAlign and other systems, according to the Chicago-based vendor. Version 6.3 also introduces the MindAlign Reporting Pack, which is designed to help simplify reporting and systems management in large organizations. Pricing starts at about $150,000 for a typical deployment.

Microsoft still leads in corporate e-mail

Microsoft Corp. will stay at the top of the growing corporate e-mail market, thanks in part to its software's new "wireless push" capabilities, according to a new report from The Radicati Group Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif. The study revealed that Microsoft's Exchange e-mail system currently has 23 million more seats than Lotus Domino, IBM's e-mail offering. The addition of wireless push e-mail capability to Exchange as part of the Service Pack 2 upgrade should keep driving users to Microsoft in the future, The Radicati Group predicted.