INDUSTRY

Small Tree Communications, a leading Mac network solutions provider, has announced that its proprietary Intel PRO/1000 MT Adapters for the Apple Mac platform and Mac OS X are now shipping. The Intel® PRO/1000 MT Server Adapters, coupled with Small Tree's Mac OS X driver technology, are copper-based, gigabit Ethernet PCI server adapters featuring either 1, 2 or 4 independent ports bring the highest level of performance networking to the Apple Power Mac and Xserve. Small Tree Communications now provides a choice of three multiport copper gigabit solutions. "The Intel Copper adapters are known to be the most reliable and highest performing products in the industry and are ideally suited for the Apple market where reliability and superior performance is expected," said Corky Seeber, president of Small Tree Communications. "Small Tree has been first to market with several new products in the past and we are proud to be expanding our product line of Ethernet interfaces for the Mac community once again." "The Intel® PRO/1000 Server Adapters are widely accepted in the industry for enterprise server and storage systems where reliability is key," said Tom Swinford, general manager, LAN Access Division at Intel. "The introduction of Small Tree's custom OS-X drivers for our adapters extends Intel PRO Network Connections support to a wide array of computer environments." The copper gigabit Ethernet adapters are 133MHz, 64-bit capable PCI-X cards. The single and dual port cards are compatible with G4 and G5 Power Mac and Xserve systems. The quad port card is compatible with all Xserve and G5 Power Mac systems. The cards are interconnected using industry standard Category 5 Ethernet cable capable of supporting up to 100 meter connection lengths. The cards work seamlessly with any existing Ethernet infrastructure by supporting auto speed matching of the network and are fully compatible with 10/100 networks. The cards, along with Small Tree's software, work with Mac OS 10.2.7 or later versions. Once the cards are installed, the adapters appear as another Ethernet interface to the computer and use standard TCP/IP protocols, ensuring that no application changes are required. Each port on the multiport cards operates independently, allowing connections to multiple networks while saving PCI slots. Multiple ports can be bonded together to create a single high bandwidth, fault tolerant virtual interface when using Small Tree’s 802.3ad Link Aggregation software. The advantages of Intel copper multiport gigabit products include support for jumbo frames up to 16K, improved CPU utilization rates and higher sustained throughput over a wider range of network traffic patterns. Small Tree Communications is dedicated to providing unique leading edge enterprise networking solutions to the Apple platform. With world-class high performance computing experience from its team of networking and kernel developers, Small Tree Communications brings new technology peripheral products to meet the demanding application requirements of Mac customers. In addition to copper based 1Gb Ethernet adapters, the company also offers optic-based multi port gigabit cards, 10Gb Ethernet adapters and IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation software for the Mac. Pricing and additional information can be found on the company's web site at www.small-tree.com, by calling 866-STC-4MAC, or by sending email to info@small-tree.com.