Zippier Zip drive

Storage company Iomega yesterday launched its first Zip drive with support for FireWire as well as Macintosh and Windows systems. The company unveiled the new product at the Apple Expo which is running in Paris.

The high-speed FireWire Zip stores up to 750MB of data on a single disk in a host-powered unit. This is enough to store a good bit of audio and video, and with a FireWire connection, transferring the data can be done at up to 400Mbps. Since launching the Zip drive in 1995, Iomega has sold more than 48 million drives and as much as 300 million disks.

Another one from the Paris Apple Expo: Apple representatives said yesterday that dual-booting Macintoshes will be a thing of the past come January. From next year all new Macs will only boot into Mac OS X, the company`s latest operating system, and it will not offer a choice of Mac OS X and previous operating systems. Support for Mac OS 9 will, however, still be supported through the "Classic" software bundle shipped with all new Macs.

The move is a mirror of what the company did all those years ago when it switched over to the new PowerMac system, while still retaining support for earlier systems. It perhaps also signals a new sense of maturity in the operating system and the company says there are now more than 4 000 native OS X applications available.

HP has signed a third storage API swap, this time with Hitachi. The move, reported by CBROnline today, gives HP access to nearly 90% of all installed disk arrays. It means customers will be able to manage storage arrays from both of these companies using either of the companies` software.

The move also reflects the growing trend towards cross-vendor support for management tools for storage systems. Apparently the software, which will be available in the form of updates, will begin shipping over the next two quarters and will cover both high- and mid-range storage arrays.

But CBROnline reports that whether HP`s interoperability lead is as great as it claims is yet to be seen, and will depend on how fast the emerging and widely-backed CIM and BlueFin - or SMI - standards are taken up across the industry. [More at CBROnline]

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