Stories by: Cathleen Moore

Blogs and wikis have moved past the flashy tech bling phase and are now settling in as core elements of the enterprise collaboration infrastructure. Two enterprise content management vendors are helping drive this evolution, bolstering their platforms with security and auditing functions designed to preserve the sparkle of blogs and wikis while making the content safe for the enterprise.

IBM plans to announce support for the ODF standard in an upcoming release of its Workplace Managed Client application this week.

Google's entry last week into the IM space gave a high-profile shot in the arm to the open IM protocol XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol). The decision to base Google Talk on the XML-based XMPP framework -- combined with Google's considerable market clout -- could shake up stalled IM interoperability efforts, or at the very least gives a big lift to a grassroots Internet standard.

Yahoo on Monday announced it has acquired Pixoria, a maker of mini applications, or widgets, that be customised to provide information such as Wi-Fi signal strength, stock prices, and traffic conditions.

Who says open source can't measure up to commercial software for mission-critical applications? Far from being a mere quick fix or low-cost alternative, open source software is helping real-world companies solve their most pressing IT problems.

Linux is ready for the corporate desktop, and the forthcoming version of Novell's Linux Desktop offering will go head-to-head against Windows, Novell executives said here this week at the company's annual BrainShare gathering.

At its annual BrainShare conference, Novell introduced two modular platforms designed to let developers build Web-services applications and make applications identity-enabled.

Although much work remains to be done to sort out the hodgepodge of standards and outstanding technology hurdles in wireless infrastructure, the infrastructure layer groundwork is now solid enough to support the next wave in mobile computing, which will be applications that will radically alter how we live and work, according to Chris Shipley, executive producer of Demo Conferences.

A new crop of search engines tuned specifically to unearth information from Weblogs and other news feeds are emerging to help simplify the process of searching and navigating Weblogs. To that end, The Fuzzy Group LLC recently launched Feedster, a search engine designed to monitor and index the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds that comprise Weblogs. RSS is a Web content syndication format based on XML.

In an ongoing effort to prove instant messaging technology can live up to strict corporate communication standards, vendors of IM technology unveiled a slew of offerings designed to bolster IM security at the IM Planet Conference and Expo in San Francisco.

The Liberty Alliance Project this week added five new members, kicking up momentum behind the organization as it prepares to release its first technology specification this summer.