Rackmount Ranger: Is the BR1 brush grommet panel ROHS compliant? What kind of finish does it have? Is it certified to the UL.94.V-0 flamability rating?

The BR1 and its cousin the BR2 are 1U and 2U rackmount brush grommet panels respectively. They are ROHS (Restriction of the use of Hazardous Substances) compliant, which makes them able to be imported into Europe for use in IT and networking applications.

The panels are painted with a black epoxy powder coat, and are made of fire resistant materials in compliance with UL.94.V-2.

Rackmount Ranger poses with our waitress Lexly. What a good sport!!!

Rackmount Ranger flashes his tool. Robin Hunt, President left, Patti, Lisa, Rebecca

Rackmount Ranger enjoys the slide to the dance floor.

Rackmount Ranger dances with ISC’s Lisa (Cowgirl) Constantino

Kevin Hunt VP Sales & Marketing Praises Rackmount Ranger’s work for World Peace and Network Managers

Rackmount Ranger flashes his tool. Robin Hunt, President-left, Patti, Lisa and Rebecca

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Hard to believe that the former sparring partners are now announcing a joint venture. Microsoft and Novell are teaming up in the product development arena and are working towards interoperability between MS Active Directory and Novell’s eDirectory. Interesting times.

Microsoft, Novell add detail to technology partnership
Deni Connor

March 13, 2007 (Network World) — Microsoft and Novell Monday announced more details about their joint development of products in the virtualization, directory and identity management and document format areas.

The two will focus on developing a virtualization package for Linux and Windows servers that lets customers run SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 as a guest operating system on Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 service pack 1 and on the next version of Microsoft Windows Server, codenamed Longhorn. It will also let customers run Longhorn as a guest operating system on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, using the Xen virtualization technology.

These virtualization features will be released throughout this year.

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The industry GIANT in online advertising is looking to broaden its dominance to the TV viewing world. Check out this article which briefly discusses their early plans. Those early plans include signing a deal with Dish Networks.

Google Testing TV Ads in California
Michael Arrington

The WSJ is reporting (behind paywall) that Google is conducting a small scale test of television advertisements in the Northern California town of Concord (east of San Francsicso), and there are additional rumors that Google is close to signing a deal with Dish Network, a satellite television provider, to supply advertising to its television subscribers.

The article also notes that the total size of the television advertising market in the U.S. is $54 billion annually, which is much larger than Google’s current $20 billion/year playground, online advertising.

There is no information on how much Google is planning on assisting advertisers in creating the ads. Their audio advertising product, also still in testing, contains basic creation tools and access to voice professionals.

Spotrunner, an online startup that assists advertisers with ad creation and buying, has gained a lot of momentum in the last year. Rumors are always circulating that Google or someone else will acquire the company. These tests do nothing to suggest an acquisition is more or less likely - only that Google is definitely looking at the space. Spotrunner has raised $60 million in financing.

An interesting twist to the soon-to-be online “niche” world. With seed money already in place, this could turn out to be the new avenue for aspiring niche-heads. Only time will tell if the idea of a micro-network web will become the rage.

Internet Start-Up to Take a Hybrid Media Approach

By BRAD STONE
Published: March 8, 2007

Several cable television veterans are putting their band back together and taking their act to the Internet.

Next New Networks, a New York-based Internet start-up run and backed by former executives of MTV and Nickelodeon, will announce plans today to begin a series of video-oriented Web sites — what the company calls micro-networks — on niche topics like do-it-yourself fashion, comic books, car racing and cartoons.

The company’s founders include Herb Scannell, who as a top executive at Nickelodeon in the 1990s was responsible for introducing such enduring fare as SpongeBob SquarePants. Another founder, Fred Seibert, was the first creative director at MTV and was behind many of the channel’s early flourishes, like the “I Want My MTV� slogan.

The company will also announce that it has received $8 million in seed capital, in part from the Pilot Group, a media investment firm run by Robert W. Pittman, who created MTV and later overhauled Nickelodeon.

Check out the rest of this interesting story here…

Here’s the low-down on the blog post of yesterday outlining the Verizon-Vonage Battle. Although the jury has sided with Verizon, it has only found Vonage guilty of some patent infringement. See below for further details.

Verizon Wins Patent Case Against Vonage; Now Pushing To Shut Down Vonage Service
from the hurray-for-innovation dept

Following yesterday’s request by Verizon that Vonage pay nearly $200 million for actually innovating while Verizon sat on the sidelines, a jury has sided with Verizon, and told Vonage to pay up. They didn’t go all the way, however, finding Vonage only violated some patents, and saying the fine should be $58 million and 5.5% of future service revenue. Verizon, however, has also asked the judge to issue an injunction to shut down Vonage’s service. Given the recent MercExchange/eBay Supreme Court decision hopefully the judge will realize that an injunction isn’t reasonable here. Vonage, of course, will appeal, so this is anything but over. What will likely happen, though, is that Vonage will just settle the case, because at some point it’s just cheaper to settle than to fight. Apparently, that’s what you get for innovating as a small company these days.

When Corporate Profits mean more than employee relations, you can bet that stockholders are the ones that will be working the puppet strings. Even though the Computer Giant outsourced most operations over the years, including customer service for its purchasers, it seems as though that wasn’t enough to cork the hemorrhaging. Looks like more cuts are on the horizon.

Dell: Pulling Out the Pink Slips?
Efforts to streamline operations suggest a round of job cuts could be coming at the beleaguered PC maker

by Louise Lee
Technology

Is Dell (DELL) preparing for a significant round of layoffs? All indicators are signaling yes.

The struggling PC maker has not uttered the actual words “job cuts” or “reduction in workforce.” Just after he reassumed the CEO post on Jan. 31, founder Michael Dell did say that the company must “eliminate redundancies” as part of its turnaround. “We want to streamline how we do things,” explains Dell spokesman Bob Pearson. “We have not said anything about head count.” (See BusinessWeek.com, 3/2/07, “Dell’s Doubtful Turnaround”.)

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Verizon Claims Vonage Owes It $197 Million For Patent Infringement from the nice-work-if-you-can-get-it dept

If you want a good example of the backwardness of the patent system these days, just check out the lawsuit where Verizon claims Vonage infringed on its patents. It’s pretty well accepted that Vonage really was very innovative in bringing VoIP to market. It was one of the first “telephone replacement” VoIP offerings out there, and did a great job creating that marketplace with a huge marketing effort. However, after it was successful in finding a market (and competing against traditional telecom players like Verizon), Verizon suddenly decided that it held a patent on VoIP offerings and sued Vonage. Remember, that Verizon has done pretty much everything possible to keep people from getting services like Vonage. It had its own offering in the market, but was much later to market than Vonage and noticeably more expensive. It should come as no surprise that the offering didn’t get much attention. So, what do you do when you fail in the market? You sue for patent infringement. Not only that, but you then claim that Vonage owes you $4.93 per customer per month — which seems just a bit excessive.

To read the entire article, click here.