Specialists Wanted

Patently True

Thank you, Rob Preston, for speaking the truth about patents. A menace to the computing industry, they're instruments of extortion that serve no useful purpose in promoting innovation. And as businesspeople, we must be innovative to stay competitive.

Mark Mason
Network Administrator
Southwest Strings

[email protected]

Apples to Apples?In "NAS for the Masses" (April 29, 2004), why did Steven J. Schuchart Jr. choose to compare First Intelligent Array's POPnetserver 1000 with Snap Appliance's Snap Server 4500? Aren't these products in different price classes?

Stuart Horner
Owner

Horner Consulting
[email protected]

Steven Schuchart replies: I agree that there probably should be another product class for very low-end network-attached storage devices, but I didn't choose the FIA POPnetserver 1000 for our low-end NAS tests; FIA did. Both that product and the Snap 4500 fell within our pricing parameters.

FIA knew up front that our product lineup would include the Snap 4500, but decided to submit the POPnetserver 1000 anyway. Apparently, FIA considers the 1000 a viable alternative to the Snap 4500 for smaller businesses.

Correction

Regarding "GPN Measures Up" (May 27, 2004), both the last-mile agent and the backbone agent of Gomez Performance Network 5.1 can execute JavaScript. In addition, GPN 5.1 lets customers set up daily reports to compare backbone and last-mile performance.

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