Stories by: Laurianne McLaughlin

For all the hype about cloud computing in the enterprise—hype that Gartner believes is now nearing its peak—IT professionals continue to tell cloud-related vendors that the cloud will not be practical until several serious concerns are addressed. VMware, with its vSphere 4 announcement today, is laying the foundation for what it hopes will be a central role for VMware technology in enterprises making use of both public and private cloud computing systems.

On May 25, NASA's Phoenix Mars lander will enter the Martian atmosphere at nearly 13,000 miles per hour, complete a complex seven-minute series of events, then land on the red planet to begin a three-month mission to explore Martian soil and ice. Some 500,000 people are expected to watch this on the Web: Few of those people will be more interested than Jeanne Holm, chief knowledge architect for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and one of the IT leaders responsible for making sure all the images and video from this high-profile mission get managed and delivered to NASA staffers and the public without a hitch.

Cloud computing looks to be a "classic disruptive technology," says Forrester Research in an interesting new report published this week. For enterprise IT shops, cloud computing still poses some real risks, including an almost complete lack of service-level agreements and customer references, plus some genuine security and compliance concerns, according to Forrester. But even so, IT shops are tapping into cloud services for targeted projects: "There's a high likelihood that developers inside your company are experimenting with it right now," writes senior analyst James Staten in the report,"Is Cloud Computing Ready for the Enterprise?"

Virtualization could hardly be hotter as a trend, yet virtualization management and security tools are still in their infancy. At first glance, it defies logic.

Steve Jobs sent a seismic shocker across the tech landscape in June when he announced Apple would phase out PowerPC chips and put Intel processors inside Macs. To some, the move seemed puzzling: Why would Jobs, the king of cool design, make a deal with half of the empire that conquered the world with cookie-cutter beige boxes? Jobs said a switch to Intel chips means better Mac hardware down the line. And analysts agree that the move ensures Apple's ability to craft unique designs.