InfoWorld Web Services

Central Desktop has enhanced its eponymous Web-hosted collaboration suite with a plug-in for Outlook that the company believes increases its viability as a SharePoint alternative.

Amazon.com has launched a hosted service designed to simplify for developers the use of the Hadoop implementation of the MapReduce programming model for processing large data sets in processor clusters.

Microsoft began offering Tuesday a preview of enhancements to the company's .Net Services platform for building cloud-based applications, focusing on Web standards and interoperability, the company said.

Zend Technologies is putting the finishing touches to Zend Server, a new Web applications server aimed at mission-critical PHP applications. In beta testing since Feb. 18, the final version is now about a week from launch.

Adobe has partnered with one of the most popular social networking Web sites, Facebook, to give developers a new set of tools to create applications.

Web 2.0 Expo kicks off Tuesday with the motto quot;the power of less,quot; hoping that thousands of developers, entrepreneurs, managers, and investors in attendance will see Internet technology opportunities within current budget and resource constraints.

The much-discussed quot;Open Cloud Manifesto,quot; signed by dozens of vendors in support of cloud-computing interoperability, was officially released on Monday following several days of discussion in the tech media and the blogosphere last week.

Google Docs users shouldn#39;t lose sleep over the security concerns a security analyst has raised about the hosted suite of office productivity applications, Google said late Friday.

Microsoft#39;s sharp criticism of an quot;open cloud manifestoquot; surprised drafters of the document, who plan to release it to the public on Monday, according to the founder of a company that helped to write it.

Whether you prefer the term "utility computing" or "the cloud," the industry is headed in that direction, however slowly, and the transition will have a multifaceted impact on IT in some ways productive, others unpleasant. And it will strike to the heart of the very technology professionals who provide a significant chunk of what is today's enterprise IT.

Microsoft has no plans to let businesses license and host its Windows Azure cloud-computing infrastructure on their own premises, the company said this week.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=b19c4857ae8bd8ee8f52b33fc4e05131p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=b19c4857ae8bd8ee8f52b33fc4e05131p=1//a

By now, many collaboration software providers consider it a must to have an enterprise social-networking component in their suites, but#160;Google, which shook up this market with its Web-hosted Apps product in 2006, stands out for lacking this capability.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=209a0399a8421c8889a1d5d8b299f596p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=209a0399a8421c8889a1d5d8b299f596p=1//a

Despite a growing track record of success, software as a service is still misunderstood by a surprising number of IT and business decision-makers. It#39;s time to put to rest some misconceptions about SaaS. Let#39;s bust the five most common myths.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=11f9b929cc0c240314727315ba3cb14ep=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=11f9b929cc0c240314727315ba3cb14ep=1//a

The Eclipse Foundation will cite at the EclipseCon 2009 conference this week the latest developments in areas ranging from the core Eclipse platform to SOA and modeling, including plans to make the platform available as Web services.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=de545405d21a85ddaac721382dc9a458p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=de545405d21a85ddaac721382dc9a458p=1//a

Adding more processing cores has emerged as the primary way of boosting performance of server and PC chips, but the benefits will be greatly diminished if the industry can#39;t overcome certain hardware and programming challenges, participants at the Multicore Expo in Santa Clara, California, said this week.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=1525969654199f81dd4c04df2aa18eb2p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=1525969654199f81dd4c04df2aa18eb2p=1//a

Oracle is set to release two highly anticipated products within the next several months -- Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g -- company President Charles Phillips revealed during the vendor#39;s#160;third-quarter earnings call #160;Wednesday.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=aea8fc79c42efddf84e1a6937484893cp=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=aea8fc79c42efddf84e1a6937484893cp=1//a

Workday customers will soon be able to tap the SaaS (software as a service) vendor#39;s human resources and financial applications from their iPhone, the company announced Thursday.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=20481e241b2cc8a4e4b31e7af9469dd1p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=20481e241b2cc8a4e4b31e7af9469dd1p=1//a

MySpace will enhance its data portability system on Wednesday with new features for both members and application developers, the latest move by a social-networking company to extend the ways in which its data can be used outside its own service.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=d0a7a5e5c1608a0fa339f6e8892e505bp=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=d0a7a5e5c1608a0fa339f6e8892e505bp=1//a

Google unveiled on Tuesday a new beta release of its Chrome browser, offering improvements in speed and capabilities, such as full page zoom.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=f915cb5f84fed7876d84b94322b000f2p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=f915cb5f84fed7876d84b94322b000f2p=1//a

Users of Microsoft#39;s cloud-computing network Windows Azure suffered an overnight outage over the weekend during which their applications being hosted on the network weren#39;t available, Microsoft confirmed late Monday.br clear=both style=clear: both;/ br clear=both style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=dc50a82718a8ba9df4c34ab7f8bdfceap=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=dc50a82718a8ba9df4c34ab7f8bdfceap=1//a