News podcast: Network World 360
HP said this morning that it has signed a deal to acquire IT outsourcer Electronic Data Systems for $13.9 billion, or $25.00 per share; VMware is releasing two bundles of management and automation products designed to streamline disaster recovery and curb virtual server sprawl. (5:43)

Cisco data center chief steps down
Cisco's senior official in charge of data center, switching and services is leaving after 15 years at the networking company to pursue other opportunities.

Microsoft posts preview versions of server bundles
Microsoft Tuesday released a preview version of its Essential Business Server bundle aimed at small and midsize businesses and said a preview of its revamped Small Business Server 2008 would come in the next few weeks.

Vendors update tools for managing BlackBerries
InterNoded and Zenprise unveiled new versions of their applications for managing different parts of the BlackBerry world for enterprise users. The software makers debuted their respective releases at Research in Motion's Wireless Enterprise Symposium going on this week in Orlando.

Three charged in Dave & Buster's hacking job
It may not have been the greatest hack ever, but police say the malicious software sneaked onto restaurant chain Dave & Buster's corporate network was good enough to earn criminals hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Microsoft eyes 40 percent of smartphone market by 2012
Microsoft is aiming to capture 40 percent of the smartphone market with Windows Mobile by the year 2012, an executive said Tuesday.

Intel's Chengdu operations remain offline after quake
Intel's test and assembly plant in Chengdu remained offline on Tuesday, as the region in southwestern China reeled from the effects of a devastating earthquake that struck on Monday afternoon.

Microsoft faces another interoperability complaint in Europe
Microsoft's reluctance to make its Office suite interoperable with competing products has prompted a British government agency to complain to the European Commission, which is already investigating the company's conduct ...

Hacker posts Chilean government data on 6 million
An anonymous hacker has posted personal data about 6 million Chilean residents on the Internet, highlighting wider privacy problems in the country.

Sun to clarify JavaFX open-source plan later this year
While Sun executives have said that JavaFX, the company's nascent rich Internet application (RIA) development product family and eventual competitor to Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight, will be entirely open ...

BLOGS

The virtualization of telephony
Nickasch: Virtualization in the telephony environment isn't as simple as it's application server counterparts. Timing is everything, especially in telephony. With shared compute resources, it's hard to scale any type of large production environment on a virutalized system.

An Audubon-type “Field Guide to Application Delivery Systems”
Sevcik and Wetzel: What if everybody called a robin by a different name? It would be downright annoying. The same is true with application delivery system (ADS) technologies. That’s why we came up with the Field Guide to Application Delivery Systems.