Google’s epic struggle to wean the world from Microsoft Office reached a milestone this afternoon. The company’s first high-profile lawsuit over the hegemony of Office came to close, with Mountain View claiming at least a minor victory in its battle to push its own Google Apps suite into the federal government.
Ever since Iomega announced the iConnect Wireless at CES we’ve been thinking long and hard about our NAS usage. Do we really want a NAS with built-in drives? Why can’t we be free of NAS hegemony?
Well, the $99 iConnect promises to break our shackles. It’s a NAS without a drive. Here’s a quick hands on and we’ll do a full review this week. The press release, for your edification, follows.
Iomega’s New iConnect Wireless Data Station: Share Files, Manage Torrents,
Access Your Data Remotely, Backup Your PC and Mac
And Much More for Only $99
***
Transform Your USB Hard Drives and Flash Drives into “Smart” Network StorageSAN DIEGO, January 5, 2010 – Iomega, an EMC company (NYSE: EMC) and a global leader in data protection, today announced the worldwide launch of the Iomega® iConnect Wireless Data Station, a powerful and yet inexpensive device that provides a simple way to bring all of your USB storage into your network, allowing you to connect, share and access files anywhere, even over the Internet – all for only $99.99.
On display this week at the Consumer Electronics Show (Booth # 31823, South Hall 3) in Las Vegas, the iConnect Wireless Data Station has no onboard storage, instead allowing users to bring all of their desktop and portable USB storage into their network. Connect the Iomega iConnect device to your router in either a wired or wireless configuration*, and it’s as easy as plugging external USB drives or USB Flash drives (any brand) into any of the four USB ports on the Iomega iConnect device, making the drives automatically connected to and accessible from any computer on your network or remotely via the web.
With that simple set up, users of the iConnect Wireless Data Station not only have incremental storage on their network to save, share and enjoy, they also enjoy such capabilities as a UPnP™ DLNA Certified AV Media Server that streams photos, audio content and videos to a variety of media devices; a torrent download manager for managing peer-to-peer file transfers; Time Machine® support for Apple® users; device-to-device replication for data protection; print serving to the network and much more.
“For computer users with plenty of USB-connected storage devices, the new Iomega iConnect Wireless Data Station is great way to save money and make your USB storage drives ‘smart’ at the same time,” said Jonathan Huberman, president of Iomega and the Consumer and Small Business Products Division of EMC. “For less than $100, users now have a NAS device that offers everything from remote access to torrent download capability to a built-in iTunes and media server. The iConnect Wireless Data Station is a great way to utilize what you already own in a whole new way.”
Benefits and Features of the new iConnect Wireless Data Station
The new iConnect Wireless Data Station utilizes the acclaimed EMC LifeLine™ software, a fully-developed Linux operating environment and suite of applications that is designed for cross-platform support with Windows®, Mac® and Linux computers. Users of the iConnect device interact with an easy-to-understand interface that provides all the latest in multimedia serving as well as remote access features, making it a breeze to access your own data, whether in the office, the home, or anywhere else in the world.**Among the many value-add features of the iConnect Wireless Data Station:
• Easy file sharing, data backup and print serving from any networked Windows® PC, Mac® or Linux workstation.
• Gigabit Ethernet and wireless connectivity by connecting directly to your router in either a wired or wireless (802.11b/g/n wireless protocol) configuration.
• Remote access allows you to connect securely from anywhere in the world and get full access to pictures, videos, files – everything stored on the connected USB drives. An added bonus: remotely access and administer the iConnect device through a personalized web address.
• Simple expandability means you can add storage capacity by simply connecting more or larger external USB drives.
• Device-to-device replication for data protection allows you to define a job to copy and/or synchronize files to and from the connected USB drives or any other shared storage on your network. Iomega makes it easy with one-touch copying with the QuikTransfer button on the front of the iConnect device.
• Print Serving with intelligent print sharing capability for up to two USB printers.
• Time Machine support allows Apple users to easily backup any Mac computers running OS X (10.5 or later) using Time Machine.
• UPnP™ DLNA Certified AV Media Server provides the ability to stream photos, audio content and videos to a variety of media devices, such as game consoles (Microsoft Xbox® 360, Sony PlayStation® 3), audio bridges, iTunes® players, networked digital picture frames, Iomega® ScreenPlay™ products and more.
• Photo slideshow capabilities with an integrated utility based on the Cooliris™ technology for quick browsing of pictures stored on the connected USB drives.
• Torrent download manager allows the iConnect device to manage peer-to-peer file transfers without the need of a dedicated PC.
• Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) provides no touch, automatic transfer of photos from digital cameras via one of the four USB ports on the iConnect device.Backup and Security Software for a Total Data Protection Solution
The new Iomega iConnect Wireless Data Station comes complete with a portfolio of backup and security software, including native security support with robust username and password authorized access. RSA® BSAFE® encryption security technology is included, too, for protecting installs and upgrades from viruses or malware. RSA is the security division of EMC that protects digital data at many of the world’s largest banks.Also included with the iConnect Wireless Data Station is the Iomega Protection Suite of software. Available via download, the Iomega Protection Suite includes Iomega QuikProtect for simple scheduled file-level backup; a choice between EMC® Retrospect® Express or Express HD to back up your data, plus applications and settings; and a free subscription to a market-leading software that protects your PC with anti-virus, anti-spyware, and web security protection.
Compatibility
The iConnect Wireless Data Station is compatible with Windows®, Mac OS®, and Linux® PCs. The interface is localized for 11 languages (including English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, German, and Russian).Price and Availability and Warranty
The new Iomega® iConnect Wireless Data Station, on demonstration at the Consumer Electronics Show (Booth # 31823, South Hall 3), January 7-10, in Las Vegas, will available worldwide starting in February for $99.99. (Pricing is U.S. suggested retail.) The iConnect Wireless Data Station is backed by a three-year warranty (with product registration).
When I first started using Linux, back in the late 1990s and the Red Hat 5.2 era, the skills I gained weren’t very useful to many employers. I initially hoped that learning Linux would help me spring into some kind of “real” UNIX job. Now, more than a decade later, Linux is more and more common, has replaced a lot of “real” UNIX systems, and the skills required to administer Linux systems are actually helpful when looking for a job. Linux is found in networks and appliances all over, and the monoculture of Microsoft hegemony is slowing fading. According to the Linux Foundation, Linux-related jobs have grown 80% since 2005.
There’s a new Linux job board at Linux.com, where employees and employers can find one another.
“Linux’ increasing use across industries is building high demand for Linux jobs despite national unemployment stats,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation. “Linux.com reaches millions of Linux professionals from all over the world. By providing a Jobs Board feature on the popular community site, we can bring together employers, recruiters and job seekers to lay the intellectual foundation for tomorrow’s IT industry.”
Of course, I’ve seen very few Linux-only jobs. Most of the time, Linux skills are part of a broader compliment of systems management, development, or integration, and a host of related skills — with both open source and proprietary systems — are required, too. Nonetheless, it’s heartening to see that Linux skills are more employable than ever before.
When I first started using Linux, back in the late 1990s and the Red Hat 5.2 era, the skills I gained weren’t very useful to many employers. I initially hoped that learning Linux would help me spring into some kind of “real” UNIX job. Now, more than a decade later, Linux is more and more common, has replaced a lot of “real” UNIX systems, and the skills required to administer Linux systems are actually helpful when looking for a job. Linux is found in networks and appliances all over, and the monoculture of Microsoft hegemony is slowing fading. According to the Linux Foundation, Linux-related jobs have grown 80% since 2005.
There’s a new Linux job board at Linux.com, where employees and employers can find one another.
“Linux’ increasing use across industries is building high demand for Linux jobs despite national unemployment stats,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at the Linux Foundation. “Linux.com reaches millions of Linux professionals from all over the world. By providing a Jobs Board feature on the popular community site, we can bring together employers, recruiters and job seekers to lay the intellectual foundation for tomorrow’s IT industry.”
Of course, I’ve seen very few Linux-only jobs. Most of the time, Linux skills are part of a broader compliment of systems management, development, or integration, and a host of related skills — with both open source and proprietary systems — are required, too. Nonetheless, it’s heartening to see that Linux skills are more employable than ever before.
Like them or not, e-books are here to stay. Personally, I don’t like them — but that’s mainly because e-book readers have been ugly, clumsy, and limited in function and selection. The tidal wave of readers we saw at CES, however, suggests that even die-hard curmudgeons like myself may soon be among the faithful. What this means, of course, is that e-books, while a real business already, are going to be looking at serious growth over the next two years. And since that necessarily will impact negatively the sales of real ink-on-paper books, retailers are looking for a way to ride the e-book wave.
Let them E-cake
French retailers, like most in the world, are in an awkward position. They know how widely-available, easy-to-download, easy-to-steal e-books on popular, cheap devices will affect their business: in five to eight years they’ll be begging for scraps from Google and Amazon. So they’ve gone arm-in-arm to see the wizard, in hopes that France will set up some sort of national e-book “hub,” by which I suppose they mean website or software. They’ve all already got something or other in place, but they think the only way to stand against the big bad Google is to join forces.
There would be protections in place for pricing, which would be lower with the French retailers working together, and the single-point service would be helpful to consumers. And although it’s doubtful that anyone trusts a major retail chain that much more than Amazon.fr, there is something to be said for keeping familiar brands alive.
There’s something noble in this scramble for self-preservation, like an antelope kicking a lioness in the jaw, but it seems to me that it’s too late: the pride is closing in. The fact is that Amazon and Google hold all the power in this relationship — them and the publishers, who have no sympathy for retailers who have likely been trying to gouge them for years. Why should the publishers give a hand? Pour La France? These are book chains owned by multinational corporations, not mom-and-pop corner book stores scraping by. No, the publishers must look to their own survival and profit, and for e-books, Google and Amazon are the 500-pound gorillas they need to appease.
The rhetoric being employed attempts to cast the retailers as the little guy. Says Guillaume Decitre, head of retailer Decitre:
If we don’t manage to do this, what’s going to happen? We will find ourselves in front of a platform, or hub, already made by a private company … whether Amazon, Google or Apple.
It’s unclear what they propose as an actual benefit to having a French hub run by them, other than a stay of execution for the retailers involved. An analyst makes noises about “preserving the culture,” but how much culture do you feel the US lost when Circuit City closed? Brick and mortars were our biggest loser of the decade for a reason. Smart ones, like Barnes and Noble, have ensured a position in the new e-book world order by creating powerful, unique IP that they can wield like a club. Want to put your books on our sweet nook? Well, let’s talk turkey. But these French retailers saw the writing on the wall too late and now all they can do is beg and hope for more scandals like 1984 to put off the inevitable.
As the publishers and analysts note, however, it seems unlikely that everyone is going to set aside their differences and put something together. There are just too many conflicting interests involved, and at any rate none of these monster businesses could launch a product fast enough to deal with the steadily advancing Amazons and Google of the world.
I feel sorry for them, and I appreciate them not taking out their looming obsolescence on the consumers, but that isn’t going to change the fact that their business model is simply out of date. Megastores like Virgin’s and the others are dinosaurs, and they shouldn’t be surprised when they start going extinct.
All of us at CrunchGear are prepping for the pain-fest we all know as the Consumer Electronics Show. For those not aware, every January, just after they’ve waddled away from the all-you-can-eat buffet called the Holidays, journalists, bloggers, and big box electronics buyers all head to Las Vegas for more of the same.
This year we’re doing a few cool things including a full live stream of our coverage right on the site thanks to our friends at LiveStream. We’ll be running the stream 24/7 and we’ll try to grab just about every major meeting and event we attend. However, I’ve just been going over our sources and have a few basic predictions for you on CES.
You can read all of our CES coverage right here.