In brief

Storage market sees vendor collaboration
The growing storage market has provided the setting for another strategic vendor partnership, this time between storage-management specialist BridgeHead Software and Grid-Tools, the process-automation technology supplier.
The partnership, says BridgeHead Software, will deliver the industry’s first, fully integrated, policy-driven database-archive and storage-management tool. The combined offering will also be more aligned with information-lifecycle management processes and technology, which are key to managing increasing volumes of primary data for compliance and corporate-governance reasons.
www.bridgeheadsoftware.com
www.grid-tools.com

Ardentia adds to enterprise-search offerings
Business-intelligence vendor Ardentia has launched an ‘intelligent’ enterprise-search tool that enables users to search unrelated information across numerous, unconnected data sources – for example, file servers and content-management systems.
According to Ardentia, NetSearch also supports e-Government initiatives to provide the public with better access to information, under the Freedom of Information Act.
The tool also features user authentication and authorisation, along with audit-trail capabilities for search queries and results.
www.ardentia.co.uk

Survey highlights productivity benefits of IM
After numerous studies highlighting the negative impacts of using instant messaging (IM) applications in the workplace, new research into how people use the technology has revealed productivity benefits.
Nearly half (47 per cent) of the respondents to the survey, which was conducted by IM vendor ICQ, said that IM enables them to work more closely with colleagues or clients in different locations. 41 per cent added that it was particularly useful when they needed a quick response on a business matter.
And, despite existing concerns that employees use IM predominantly to chat with friends, the survey results point to more productive popular features, such as file sharing and exchange.
www.icq.com

IKON establishes partner programme
IKON Office Solutions, the document-management services supplier, has announced the formation of a premier partner programme within its professional services. The programme, says IKON, will strengthen its existing suite of integrated document-management solutions and services.
Members so far include EMC and Captaris, both of which joined IKON’s integrated-solutions portfolio in 2004. More recent additions include IBM and Westbrook Technologies.
www.ikon.com

Oracle unveils ‘hot-pluggable’ SOA suite
Oracle has announced the availability of its suite of standards-based middleware products for building, deploying and managing service-orientated architecture (SOA).
The suite, which is ‘hot pluggable’, enables users to connect and extend existing IT systems and SOA-enable their environment without the need for costly ‘rip and replace’ procedures.
The suite is interoperable and supports both Oracle and non-Oracle application servers and messaging buses.
www.oracle.com

Postini releases IM archiving tool
Integrated message-management provider Postini has released a secure managed service for seamless capture, storage, discovery and deletion of instant messaging (IM) and e-mail traffic.
Archive Manager builds upon Postini’s integrated message-management services infrastructure and is designed to address four key requirements: archiving; reduction of storage costs; querying; and compliance.
www.postini.com