Top 10 IT News Stories of the Week
Google Apps and androids, Microsoft patches, iPhone sales and more
IDG News Service —
1. "Update: ARM to Show Off Android Platform at Trade Show Next Week"
Computerworld, Feb. 7
After reports surfaced based on an anonymous source that ARM would show demonstrate an early prototype device running Google's Android at the Mobile World Congress next week, Google and ARM eventually confirmed that's true. But they wouldn't elaborate beyond basic confirmation that the prototype will be unveiled at the show in Barcelona.
The ARM demo will be aimed at showing how the Android mobile platform works on an ARM processor, but a number of other companies will also show Android on their hardware, according to Google spokesman Barry Schnitt, who wouldn't identify the other companies. Stay tuned...
2. "Microsoft Readying Slew of Critical Updates"
PC World, Feb. 7
IS departments should gear up for Tuesday—Microsoft is going to release one of its largest-ever patch bundles, with 12 security updates expected, seven of them critical and the remainder important. Critical updates will be issued for the Windows OS, Internet Explorer and Office, Microsoft said.
3. "Google Intros Apps Edition to Bypass the IT Department"
CIO.com, Feb. 7
Google says that IT departments shouldn't be peeved that the new hosted suite, Google Apps Team Edition, can be set up by workgroups that have a valid e-mail address within a company domain, sidestepping IT managers. "The IT department always has the option to sign up for the Standard Edition for free if they want to provide control over this," says Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior project manager. "This is a solid, happy medium." We'll see how that goes. Meanwhile, Gartner analyst Matt Cain suggests that Google needs to hit a balance between encouraging end users and not cutting out the IT staff, "which will have to ultimately clean up any mess that's created."
4. "Major Vendors Join OpenID Board"
PC World, Feb. 7
IBM, Google, Microsoft, VeriSign and Yahoo are on board with the OpenID Foundation now, which will help the organization's aim to simplify website sign-on. The OpenID framework lets Web users sign on with a single name and password across the sites that support the technology. The number that do is up to 10,000, with Yahoo last month saying that its 248 million active registered users can now use their ID and password to sign on to non-Yahoo sites also using the OpenID 2.0 framework. This is expected to be a big year for single sign-on adoption.
