5 cool — and helpful — companies

As a journalist, I run across a variety of opinions and ideas. People say “Try This!!!” or “Use Our Product!” and it is hard to know everything and work with everything. There are times when companies bend over backward to get their product known… or promote their company and this is an homage to those folks. This is a quick Top 5 list of companies that have been extremely helpful to me as a journalist trying to stay on top of the learning curve.

1. Apple: Yep, surprising to find this one in the list? When I contacted the folks at Apple saying people in the InfoWorld Enterprise Windows Blog were yelling for me to use Leopard and asking for more information they asked “Well… have you ever used a Mac?” Not since my childhood with a Lisa. They said “No problem… we will send you one. Not the air book… but a very substantial laptop for you to try for however long you need.” Check back here for my article “Leopard vs. Vista”

2. Alienware: I speak at conferences all over the world. Nothing impresses the audience more (at least at the start) then lifting up the cover on my Alienware Area 51 and showing off the cool glowing head that shines across the room. The power of these systems just blows you away. I just purchased an Area 51 9750 from them and it is incredible. But Alienware, in an effort to assist us journalists and tech speakers, has given me a new laptop to play with every six months. What a huge perk in my world. So… I love them! Best laptops on the planet I might add.

3. Excito is a company based in Sweden (www.excito.com). I’ve been getting comments from some readers that say “Use Linux!” and sure that sounds great… but which flavor?… who will support me?, that is my question back. I’ve been working on a story about mini appliances that you can just plug in and walk away for small businesses and the Bubba was sent to me by Excito to play with. In the language of the young texters of today OMG! (still getting used to that… my BBF says it will take time). This mini server is noiseless. No fan! Has tons of gigs of room. Runs off Linux (so you Linux lovers can rest assured that I am getting my dose of command line) AND is a web server, bittorrent server, ftp server, mail server… everything a Linux Server should be. I plugged it in… and had it up and running in minutes. Wow. Check back for two postings on this… “Mini Appliances… the wave of the future for the Enterprise” and “Linux for Dummies”

4. UTIPU based out of Boca Raton Florida. The owners emailed me and said “hey Pete, have you checked out our site… www.utipu.com”. I hadn’t and so I gave it a look. At first I thought it was interesting. You download a free screencasting tool that allows you to save your clip as an FLV and upload it to their site. I watched a few clips, even made a few of my own… (look for JPeterB if you visit). But after talking with the owners… I missed the entire purpose. Enterprise! Imagine a company that has one of these servers IN HOUSE. There are always little issues like how to fill out the form for vacation… how to log on to the VPN… etc.. Now, anyone in the company can make a quick tip… post it… and others in the company can stop asking again and again how to do something. Check back in the future for a post on In-House Training for the Enterprise.

5. Rackspace (www.rackspace.com). Already a powerhouse for hosting all sorts of services… they recently acquired Webmail.us and now they are a power to be reckoned with. They host web servers, application servers, virtualization, email solutions, database services, security services or storage and backup. They can manage and support all of them for you or just some of them. Most impressive is the offerings they have for messaging solutions. It seems like hosting is the wave of the future for many enterprises. Check back for a future post on “Should I Use Hosted Email?”

Well… that is all for this time. 5 Cool Companies you may, or may not have already known about.