Stories by: Tom Kaneshige

Fearful tech workers tiptoeing along the shaky alleys of Wall Street -- and fretting about losing their jobs -- should take a deep breath. Of the more than 100,000 job losses expected as a direct result of the financial crisis, only a tiny slice will likely be from the tech ranks, figures Sean O'Dowd, an analyst at market researcher Financial Insights.

Faced with a massive PC refresh at a price tag of US$1.8 million, Jack Wilson instead rolled the dice on virtual desktops three years ago. The enterprise architect at Amerisure Insurance didn't just dabble in the nascent technology, he enacted a sweeping change, replacing all 800 PCs with Wyse thin clients and a server infrastructure that hosts 800 Windows workspaces -- a feat that took eight months and, critically, struck at the heart of worker productivity in a services-dependent industry.

Trying to secure laptops, cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices today is "terrifying," says Christopher Paidhrin, IT security and HIPAA compliance officer at Southwest Washington Medical Center. "End-point security is scarily immature."

Two weeks ago, VMware found itself squarely in Microsoft's crosshairs -- and chaos followed. VMware lowered its revenue expectations for the year earlier this week. Its stock took a nosedive, which likely led to President and Chief Executive Diane Greene's sudden resignation yesterday.

Although Google always seems to be up to something, the past few months have seen a flurry of activity in a space long associated with IT: Google has driven its cloud computing applications -- Google Apps -- into businesses.

Will Apple iPhone's "greatest show on Earth" sway Research in Motion (RIM) BlackBerry's business faithful? Hint: Bet on the BlackBerry for business.

Two years ago, GreenBorder, one of the early "sandbox" browsers, received mighty applause from Wall Street Journal tech guru Walt Mossberg. The sandbox browser -- basically, a browser running in a virtual container -- promised to keep nasty code from spilling into a computer's operating system and wreaking havoc.

Everyone knows that server virtualization shaves hardware clutter in the datacenter, boosts workloads, brings disaster recovery flexibility, slashes costs and basically saves the planet from nasty carbon emissions. But here's the dirty little secret: Many pitfalls await server virtualization adopters, and a stumble can ruin all your virtual dreams.

Tech vendors have made headway in the war on spam, yet spammers are returning volley with sheer numbers. Perhaps it's time for more drastic measures? These are the rumblings from InfoWorld Test Center analysts, who reviewed anti-spam email appliances and released their findings last week.