Hasta La Gadget!

For years, suit-and-tie circles have bowed to BlackBerry as the king of corporate communication, but iOS has been creeping in on enterprise territory, calling into question RIM’s sovereignty in the boardroom. The folks at Deutsche Bank Equity Research struck the most recent blow to RIM’s enterprise dominance with the announcement that they’ll buck BlackBerry for iPhone, following a trial using Good Technology’s secure email app. The company tested the app in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange Server, delivering AES 192-encrypted email and calendar data to employees, and, according to the firm’s research analyst, the iPhone proved an easier and faster solution to BlackBerry. Last summer, AT&T announced that 40 percent of iPhone sales are enterprise, and we just reported on RIM’s possible move to devices beyond the BlackBerry. We’re not saying it’s off to the guillotine with the old standard bearer, but it definitely looks like there are new contenders for the enterprise crown.

Deutsche Bank ditches BlackBerry for iPhone, Apple puts chink in RIM’s enterprise armor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s a shocker in more ways than one. Earlier this month, Enterprise Rent-A-Car announced that it would soon be offering Chevrolet’s Volt at the company’s Mark Christopher Auto Center in Ontario, California, and we reasonably assumed that renters best watch out for any unforeseen charges that may arise from returning it with a dead (or near-dead) stash of batteries. For anyone who has rented a gasoline-powered automobile in the past score, you’ll know that returning a whip with a fuel tank that’s just 90 percent full won’t quite cut it, and you’ll be stuck ponying up for your oversight. Thankfully — at least at Enterprise — a similar surcharge setup will not be applied to electric vehicles. Lisa Martini, a spokesperson for Enterprise, got in touch with us to clarify the outfit’s plans, and they’re shockingly consumer-friendly:

“[Enterprise] does not plan to charge customers for bringing back EVs without a full charge. Enterprise is installing charging stations at locations that will offer EVs, and plans to charge the vehicles once they’re returned.”

That pretty much sums it up for at least one major rental company, and we can only hope that everyone else publishes similar intentions before their accountants publish something to the contrary. Power to the people, eh?

Will rental car companies ding you for returning half-charged electric vehicles? Enterprise won’t. originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 12:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Western Digital may have shipped the industry’s first 2.5-inch 1TB hard drive, and PureSilicon may have done likewise for the SSD sector, but Seagate is still finding a way to lay claim to a “first” with its newfangled Constellation.2. This here 2.5-incher is hailed as the “first 1TB 2.5-inch enterprise HDD,” with it being primed and ready for the insane demands generally found in DAS, NAS, SAN and other nonstop business environments. You’ll get 6Gb/s performance, T10 Protection Information (you know, for keeping your scanned travel receipts safe and sound) and 1.4 million hours MTBF. There’s a self-encrypting drive option for those who just can’t be too careful, and it’ll be out and about later this month in capacity choices of 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB. Mum’s the word on pricing, but Dell ought to be offering ’em across its enterprise products before the dawn of 2011.

Continue reading Seagate trots out 2.5-inch 1TB Constellation.2 hard drive, dares you to wear it out

Seagate trots out 2.5-inch 1TB Constellation.2 hard drive, dares you to wear it out originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 17:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As if you needed any further confirmation that Apple is a consumer company first and foremost, the Cupertino team has decided to discontinue sales of its Xserve enterprise server offering. The rack-mountable processing powerhouses will no longer be available for purchase after January, though full support of those already sold is promised, meaning that all warranties and extended service programs will be honored. To soften the blow for those who might still insist on using OS X in their servers, Apple has put together a “transition guide,” advising that users switch over to the Mac Pro or … the Mac mini, both of which come with the option to have Snow Leopard Server pre-installed. Honestly, the Mac mini!

[Thanks, Jakob]

Apple Xserve sales end January 31st, support will continue originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Nov 2010 07:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Traditionally, cameraless versions of smartphones designed for high-security work environments have been the exclusive playground of Windows Mobile and BlackBerry — the enterprise mobile platforms companies have rallied around the most over the past decade — but Motorola’s Droid Pro seeks to give Android some serious enterprise street cred for the first time thanks to that glorious portrait QWERTY keyboard. To that end, it makes sense that they’d want to release a second version sans camera — and a new leak speaking of “the new Enterprise-focused DROID phone without a camera” suggests that’s exactly what’s happening. Our trusted source says they’re “99 percent positive” that’s what we’re looking at here; not a product for everyone, of course, but if you work in the government lab where they keep all the alien corpses, you’ll probably be thanking your lucky stars.

Motorola Droid Pro coming in a cameraless version for security-conscious businessfolk? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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