Spotlight

PSINet to offer hosted apps

Internet service provider PSINet Inc. has joined the ranks of application service providers with its acquisition earlier this month of Metamor WorldWide Inc.

As a consequence of the deal, Metamor, of Houston, has been renamed PSINet Consulting Solutions and will offer enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, and supply chain management software and services.

PSINet, of Ashburn, Va., is looking to meld Metamor's applications development expertise with its own Web hosting experience, national fiber-optic network and 24 worldwide hosting centers, PSINet officials said.

PSINet Consulting officials said the fledgling company already has customers on board, including ON Semiconductor, Rocheux International Inc. and The Honeybaked Ham Co.

Tool enables provisioning

Microsoft corp. has launched a shareware application to help ISPs provision Web sites.

The Redmond, Wash., company's Provisioning Tool for Microsoft Windows 2000 reduces the time to autoprovision new sites in a shared hosting environment from 35 minutes to less than 2 minutes, officials said.

The tool is aimed at Internet service providers and telecommunications companies doing shared hosting on Windows NT 4.0- and Windows 2000-based servers.

Developed with the Atlanta-based Web hosting company Interland Inc., the tool comprises three Windows 2000 services: Web Administrator, Provisioning Manager and QOS Manager.

In addition to free online support, for-pay support options are available through eQuest Technologies Inc.

The tool and associated documentation are available for download here.

3Com picks MangoSoft

Hoping to speed internet access times, 3Com Corp., of Santa Clara, Calif., last week added Web caching capabilities from MangoSoft Corp., of Westboro, Mass., to its latest versions of OfficeConnect.

MangoSoft's CacheLink will be a part of 3Com's LAN, modem and router product lines. The client-side software tool for PC desktop systems should speed access to commonly viewed Web pages and downloadable files, officials said.

CacheLink connects the browser caches of computers on an enterprise's local network into a single large cache pool.

CacheLink will be included with OfficeConnect ISDN, 56K, Dual 56K and IDSL LAN modems and the OfficeConnect Remote 812 and 840 routers.

Touchpad: 'Purr-fect'

Cirque corp. has introduced a USB input device for PCs and Macintoshes that is easy on the wrist and the wallet.

The Easy Cat USB Touchpad lets users move their cursor with a gentle glide of the finger. Users can tap on the Easy Cat in place of mouse clicks, and a tap in an upper corner acts as a secondary or "right" click. In addition, Easy Cat offers access to submenus and wheel-mouse-type scrolling.

The unit is 2.7 inches long by 3.4 inches wide by 0.5 inch deep and comes with a 6-foot Universal Serial Bus cable.

As a bonus, the Easy Cat has no moving parts to clean. The unit is available now from the Salt Lake City company priced at $49.99.

WebTrends updates suite

Webtrends corp. last week asserted the other side of its Web presence when it rolled out a major release of its Windows-based e-business systems management suite.

The Portland, Ore., company, best known for its Web site traffic analysis capability, released Version 5 of its Enterprise Suite.

The suite's modules analyze Web traffic, servers, streaming media and links and handle alerting and recovery.

WebTrends addressed scalability by enhancing the suite's FasTrends database to track as many as 45 million unique visitor sessions at an e-commerce site.

Version 5 is free for current subscription holders and is priced at $1,999 for new customers. MangoSoft's client-side caching decreases access times.

Palm prepares for new look

M100 features curvy case, removable plates

Low, low price Palm Inc. next month will unveil radical product redesigns and a new entry-level model, according to sources. The M100 entry-level model will have the lowest introductory price yet for a Palm PDA, $149. It will represent a drastic design overhaul from the Santa Clara, Calif., company, featuring a curvy case and five removable front plates. It will also come with a flip cover with a small window that shows the date and time.

Replacing IIIe The M100 will replace the IIIe personal digital assistant, which was introduced last year to compete on price with Handspring Inc.'s Handspring Visor.

Palm Vll upgrade Palm's Wireless PDA, the Palm VII, will also be upgraded. The VIIx will come with 8MB of RAM, instead of the VII's 2MB, and a new look—a slate- gray case. The VIIx, based on the Palm 3.5 operating system, will sell for $449. —ZDNNCirque's Easy Cat Touchpad.