Business Computing Digest

BeOS finds a home

There is an alternative to Wintel. PC maker iDot.com, which sells PCs online, two weeks ago began shipping a low-cost PC loaded with Be Inc.'s BeOS operating system.

Priced at $449, the 333K6-2 BeOS-Series PC includes an Advanced Micro Devices Inc. 333MHz K6-2 processor, 32MB of synchronous dynamic RAM, a 4.3GB hard drive, a 40-speed CD-ROM drive and a 56K-bps modem. The PC also comes with BeatWare Inc.'s Mail-It e-mail client and Gobe Software Inc.'s Gobe Productive office applications.

Separately, Be announced that its operating system is now available at Dell Computer Corp.'s Gigabuys.com online store.

Be, in Menlo Park, Calif., is at (650) 462-4100 or www.be.com. iDot.com, in Austin, Texas, is at (888) 388-4368 or www.idot.com.

SoundBlaster supports MP3+

Creative Technology Inc. plans to announce this month the newest offering in its line of SoundBlaster sound cards.

The Milpitas, Calif., company will deliver SoundBlaster Live Platinum, which combines products released earlier this month, SoundBlaster Live MP3+ and SoundBlaster Live X-Gamer. A general release date is not yet available.

MP3+ and X-Gamer replace the current Live Value Edition and Live models, respectively.

The Platinum model, priced at $199, will include the high-performance features of MP3+ and X-Gamer, which cost $99 each.

It also includes Live Drive, which fits into a PC's 5.25-inch drive bay and enables users to put front-panel input/output jacks, volume controls and connections for up to six external devices on their systems.

Creative Technology can be reached at (408) 428-6000 or www.soundblaster.com.

HP cuts OmniBook prices

Hewlett-Packard Co. last week announced price cuts of up to 13.3 percent on several configurations of its OmniBook 900 notebook PCs, the lightest notebooks HP offers.

A model with a 300MHz Pentium II processor, 32MB of RAM, a 4.3GB hard drive and Windows 98 has been reduced from $2,275 to $2,145. A model with a 400MHz Pentium II, 32MB of RAM, a 6.4GB hard drive and Windows 98 has been cut from $3,409 to $2,955.

HP, of Palo Alto, Calif., is at (800) 752-0900 or www.hp.com.

CardScan syncs with Outlook

Corex Technology Corp. last week upgraded both the software and hardware in its CardScan business-card scanning products.

Improvements in Version 5 of the CardScan software include the following: synchronizing with Microsoft Corp. Outlook 2000 and the address book in Palm computing devices; scanning two-sided cards and attaching both images to one record; assigning categories to batches of cards while scanning them; and fixing area codes if the area code on a business card is out of date.

The software/hardware package, to be available within 30 days, will cost $299. The software alone will cost $79.

Corex, of Cambridge, Mass., is at (800) 942-6739 or www.corex.com.

InstallRite deploys apps

Epsilon Squared Inc. last week announcedInstallRite 2.0 for corporatewide software installations.

InstallRite uses technology from Epsilon Squared's InstallWatch product and monitors the changes made to a PC during the installation of applications. It then creates a self- installing executable, called InstallKit, that can be used to clone those installation processes on another PC.

InstallKit files can be installed from a network server, the Web, CD-ROMs or a copy on a hard drive.

InstallRite runs on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT and Windows 2000. It is expected to be available in November for $895 per site or $4,995 for an enterprise license.

Epsilon Squared, in Bradenton, Fla., is at (941) 752-1470 or www.epsilonsquared.com.

File retrieval at your fingertips

Burton Computer Corp. last week introduced ClassiFile for file organization and archiving software.

Using ClassiFile, PC users can store and organize compressed copies of all kinds of files via user-selected keywords and categories. Users can create custom searches, called filters, to find files by keyword, category or file name.

ClassiFile, which runs on Windows 98 and Windows NT, is $39.95 for a single-user license. A free trial version of ClassiFile can be downloaded at www.burton-computer.com.

Burton, in LaVale, Md., is at (301) 689-0257.