INDUSTRY

Apple Computer Inc. began its Macworld Conference and Expo with a renewed emphasis on topics and products for enterprise IT managers. Several sessions focusing on wireless technologies including WiFi integration are planned. Bill Wiecking, education manager at Maui High Performance Computing Center, will present a session on Airport Extreme and future developments with WiFi flavors 802.11a, b and g will be outlined. New for the San Francisco Macworld event, the IT sessions will range from Apple executives explaining how they run their IT operation to presentations from some selected users of Apple products. Networking -- both wireless and landline -- will cover many sessions. A team of IT managers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -- one of the world's largest Mac users -- will explain why they believe the Mac platform is emerging as a viable platform for IT managers. The MacIT Conference will present five tracks for Enterprise IT managers: -- SERVERS AND SERVICES will address ways and means of planning and deploying Apple's new storage solution, Xserve RAID. Apple maintains that Xserve RAID provide low-cost enterprise-class data availability, scalability, and protection. -- SECURITY sessions cover several advances including how best to protect a wide range of user technologies -- including WiFi, cable modems, and DSL -- from intrusion and the best ways to set up firewall protection. -- IT MANAGEMENT will cover several areas including the challenges presented by integrating new versions of Mac OS X into existing IT installations. Particular attention will be given to large organizations with thousands of Mac users. -- INTEGRATION topics will include the eternal and often intractable problem of integrating OS X with Windows networks. -- MAC NETWORKING BASICS covers a broad range of issues primarily utilizing Apple's Rendezvous technology. With Rendezvous, Apple maintains, users find it easy to collaborate with other Rendezvous users. Each track features several topics and generally run from Tuesday through Thursday. Today Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive officer, will make a product announcement, usually a major event. More than 100 products ranging from improved video-oriented software to networking hardware are being introduced at the show.