Stories by: Network World staff

Jerry Seinfeld pitching for Microsoft Windows Vista is just latest in long line of such tech ad campaigns.

An Ethernet patent dispute is again rearing its ugly head in court this week as Intel has filed suit against patent licensing firm Negotiated Data Solutions (N-Data) looking to indemnify Intel customers against any royalty claims N-Data is looking to grab.

At this point in the game, Microsoft should really come clean with a statement that rescinds its Linux/patent/suing threat altogether. Granted, Microsoft put itself in a hard spot with this one, since it had its channel singing the same tune for those murky months after the threat. If it stands up says, "Sorry, just kidding!" that won't make the channel partners happy, particularly if they used the threat to convince customers they must buy SUSE or Windows over Red Hat and other distros. But the fact is, we are seeing actions by Microsoft that indicate that the "suing Linux users" jig is up.

Carolyn Gudmundson, a former Microsoft manager who has admitted stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company, wrote a letter of explanation and apology, reports a post in Todd Bishop's blog. The story is a sad one of a high-paid, high-flying executive gone awry. Gudmundson has admitted to falsifying expense reports for domain names purchased on her corporate credit card. She admits to submitting the same receipts repeatedly for reimbursement.

It was a Networkers 1998 - Philadelphia, I believe - where Cisco first announced CCNA to the general public. Now, 10 years later at Networkers 2008 (aka Cisco Live), Cisco is announcing some major additions to CCNA.

Our running list of buyouts and mergers in IT for the year.

Could Enterasys be looking at possibly acquiring rival Extreme Networks? There's been a flurry of speculation on that. Enterasys has made no bones about its intention to acquire a sizable company that will take it close to US$1 billion in annual revenue and better compete with Cisco and new enterprise LAN switch entrant Juniper Networks. Extreme and Enterasys both do about US$350 million in yearly sales.

Google and IBM are testing a cloud computing infrastructure that could become an important avenue for them to deliver software and services to consumer and business users.

Technologies that can improve corporate bottom lines dominated the buzz at Interop Las Vegas, promising efficiencies and returns on investment that may help stave off cuts to IT spending in a tough economy.

The cool, odd and interesting from the big networking show.

Check out our collection of iPhone-inspired devices. We'll start out with the latest announcements and finish it out with a few imitators still making the rounds.