Technology - InfoWorld

San Francisco - IT staff jobs are at increasing risk -- both for contractors and in-house workers -- according to a survey of top CIOs by Goldman, Sachs & Co released last week. Global services companies will also feel the pinch because of the slowing economy.

San Francisco - It's been an educational week. We learned what happens when everyone tries try to activate their iPhones at the same time, what people will pay for free software, and what can go wrong when you tick off your IT folks.

San Francisco - Microsoft added this week workflow capabilities to BizTalk Services, the company's platform-in-the-cloud project for SOA and business process management.

San Francisco - Katmai, the code name for Microsoft's imminent SQL Server 2008 release, comes from an Alaskan territory know for volcanoes, which may not be the best symbol for a database. So far, however, Katmai hasn't blown up on me. And the lower-profile Katmai seems like a good follow-on to Yukon, the code name for the gigantic SQL Server 2005 release.

San Francisco - Serena Software is introducing this week Serena Dimensions RM 10.1.4, a version of its requirements management software for application development that can link to test and change management platforms.

San Francisco - Two new members of the Eclipse Foundation will make their formal debuts with the open-source tools organization Tuesday, including Sonatype, which plans to offer a Java environment to rival Visual Studio, and Excelsior, a Russian-based software company.

San Francisco - Seeking to bolster Flash and AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) application development, Adobe is working on "Gumbo," the next version of the Flex platform.

San Francisco - If there's one application that everybody has, and depends on, it's Microsoft Office. The newest Office, though, has met with a mixed reaction, thanks to a changed user interface that caused concern in some quarters and increased connections with Microsoft's collaboration technology that has intrigued many in IT -- but is optimized for Vista environments that have been slow to gain adoption.

San Francisco - There are few pieces of software that users touch more often than office productivity suites. The market monster is, of course, Microsoft Office, with the lion's share of all licenses for office productivity tools. But two trends -- open source and cloud computing -- are offering a new generation of Office alternatives that businesses may want to consider.

San Francisco - The battle to provide social networking in the enterprise is under way between solutions from established software vendors and readily available offerings such as Facebook and LinkedIn, with these sites possessing a lot of momentum, an industry insider stressed during a conference on Friday afternoon.

San Francisco - Macs are immune from security threats, right? It's Windows we have to worry about. That water-cooler wisdom needs to be flipped on its head, security experts and IT managers warn. Microsoft has gotten its security act together with Vista and its current security-response program; meanwhile, Apple is fast becoming the company most in need of getting its security mojo going.

San Francisco - It's no secret that maintenance and support for enterprise applications is wildly profitable for vendors and, likewise, incredibly expensive for IT shops. Some of those IT shops, in fact, are overwhelmed by the cost and find too little return to justify paying for it.