Email managers have a lot at stake. After all, the volume of global electronic messages sent via email dwarfs all other forms of electronic communication, including social networking. Since the inception of electronic mail, which, according to some Internet historians, can be traced to a small mainframe app called 'MAILBOX' from the mid-1960s, human-to-human messages have been created, transmitted and stored in electronic format. But early email administrators could hardly have envisioned the complexity of current email infrastructure and the concomitant maze of technical, security, business and regulatory challenges.

Intel announced three major expansions of its Xeon server processor line this week, adding lower-priced Sandy Bridge options for the two- and four-socket market and the Ivy Bridge architecture to workstation-class devices.

Intel today described management and security capabilities that will be part of its new Intel Core vPro processor family used in PCs, tablets, laptops and intelligent systems.

IBM today announced that it will begin rolling out a family of Intel Ivy Bridge-equipped versions of its M4 server expected to reduce data center power costs and offer entry level virtualization servers.

The server has been virtualised, now it's time for the rest of the datacentre - including the network - to catch up. That's the message form VMware at this year's Interop, as the company seeks to ensure it remains a major enterprise IT player while the software-defined networking trend continues to gain momentum.

IBM's PowerLinux product line got a substantial upgrade on Wednesday, as the company announced three new integrated offerings and two Linux-specific servers.

Canonical is focusing on cloud deployments with an upgrade to its Ubuntu Linux distribution being unveiled on Thursday.

Privacy advocates voiced strong concerns today over how data stored on Google Drive may be used during and after customers are actively engaged in using the cloud service.

Rackspace will help enterprises build private clouds using the OpenStack cloud operating system, the company announced Tuesday. Meanwhile, Dell is seeking enterprises and service providers for proof-of-concept OpenStack trials with its Dell PowerEdge C family of servers.

Microsoft has been paying more attention lately to the small business audience, as well as the cloud. With the "Aurora" Small Business Server (SBS)--officially named Small Business Server 2011 Essentials, Microsoft delivers a solution that brings the two together--bridging local services and the cloud, and granting small businesses affordable access to big business tools.

Virtualizing x86 infrastructure isn't just a one-step process -- as servers change, the whole data center must change as well. While server hypervisors such as VMware's ESX, Microsoft's Hyper-V and Xen can make IT more efficient and cost-effective, many of the virtualization advantages can be canceled out when data centers rely on technology and processes that haven't been updated for the virtualization age.

Companies interested in taking advantage of what cloud computing has to offer, but reluctant to trust sensitive information off-site now have a new alternative with Microsoft's Windows Azure Platform appliance. Microsoft has teamed up with strategic hardware partners to develop an appliance-based approach allowing businesses to deploy and control their own cloud.