Man, it's great talking to folks who are actually taking a chance on new ways of doing things instead of just speculating about doing it. I chatted with Mary Ann Buch today. She's the director of technology for a school district in upstate New York. They've actually been using Netbooks and VDI for a proof of concept project in the classroom. Kids and teachers like it, and she says the financial models are pretty compelling. "It's just a school district"? "That doesn't apply to my for-profit enterprise"? Think again.

What's the definition of cloud computing? I keep asking myself that question and hearing different answers. Despite the frequent use of the term, it still means different things to different people. That was evident at the Cloud Computing Conference & Expo this week in Santa Clara, where I thought I would find consensus.

There's a security problem on the horizon, which could derail the progress of social networking has made in breaking down the barriers between business and personal Internet usage. (Whether that's a good thing or not is a separate argument.) I'm speaking of the rising tide of fake Facebook messages, phishing threats, and malware.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is out making the media rounds in support of the Android launch, and during a Fox Business interview he touched on the issue of data privacy and control. It got me thinking that the subject was the real reason he's out and about.

Coinciding with the availability of the Motorola Droid and the HTC Eris at Verizon Wireless stores today, the Android Market is featuring two juicy, new applications. Photoshop.com Mobile and Slacker Radio mean more photo editing and Internet radio powers for Android lovers.

Ever since Avis made it respectable for a brand to be #2, there have been many really good examples of trailing entrants into product markets that achieve success, especially in the technology world. Is Motorola's new Droid the latest example?

In this edition: two ways to browse the web, and one great way to find everything scattered across all your storage media. Read on.

Former Motorola researcher Martin Cooper -- one of the inventors of the cellphone back in 1973 -- says that the devices do too much these days, and don't do any of them well. Is a JitterBug in Cooper's future?

Not sure what to make of this one, as it feels slightly oily. Google and Best Buy announced a new program whereby Best Buy employees will help customers download and install the Google Mobile app on their brand new cell phone.

Sprint and T-Mobile are in the "big four" club of American carriers, but it seems Verizon and AT&T continue to grow while Sprint and T-Mobile are losing out. T-Mobile just reported that they lost 77,000 net subscribers in the third quarter and Amazon has killed the Kindle that works on the Sprint network.

As part of its monthly ritual, Microsoft in its Security Bulletin Advanced Notification for this month warned of a number of nasty vulnerabilities in its operating systems and productivity software.

Anyone who's used computers knows that Windows 7 has problems. Not as many problems as Vista, perhaps, but if you are betting that Windows 7 will work perfectly you are making a sucker bet. Microsoft has never made a bug-free operating system in its entire history. That isn't going to change any time soon.

Buried in the coverage of Verizon's second Android phone (HTC Droid Eris) today was news about a new, entry-level BlackBerry that's headed to both Sprint and Verizon Wireless. The 8530 is a smaller, less expensive Curve that should appeal to the mass market more than the enterprise user.

Sure, Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd and IBM CEO Sam Palmisano spit nails at each other over most things, but on this they agree: while cloud computing has tremendous potential as a technological approach, the term itself is a lousy name. We're with you, guys, but please: whatever the new name is, no more three-letter acronyms, okay?

Verizon Wireless stores are planning to open early tomorrow morning -- and in some cases at midnight -- to let eager customers purchase the Motorola Droid. Anyone think the Droid is going to stir up iPhone-like excitement?

Will companies move their core business applications to the cloud? It's one of the great unanswered questions, and one reason NetSuite is so interesting to watch. Based on NetSuite's third–quarter financial report, the answer to this question remains partly cloudy.

A Boston-based startup named Litl is taking a big risk: they're betting people will go for a netbook that sports a Linux-based OS and focuses on Web-/network-based productivity (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). The risk is in the pricetag: $700 -- almost twice the price of computers that can do twice as much. Is there a market for this?

I recently concluded a series that examined the components of the storage environment that can impact overall storage I/O performance. There was storage I/O bandwidth, controllers and drives. What if you are like many data centers and you don’t need to wring out every drop of storage I/O performance from your storage infrastructure? What should you do with too much storage performance?

If you thought Verizon Wireless was going rest easy with the Motorola Droid launching Friday, you've got another thing coming. Today, Verizon Wireless announced that the HTC Eris -- a.k.a, Hero -- which hits stores November 6, too, for $99.

In the phone world, a list of top phones two months ago is really outdated, but it is an interesting snapshot at what is grabbing our mobile communication attention and are satisfying us most. August is particularly interesting as this would be right after the iPhone 3.0 and Palm Pre launched.

Verizon Wireless has confirmed that it is in fact altering its Early Termination Fee policy. Starting November 15, those purchasing "advanced" devices such as smartphones and laptops, will need to agree to a $350 ETF to get the subsidized price.

Siemens Communications will integrate Twitter with its Unified Communications (UC) platform, and PBworks announces plans to offer voice alongside its collaboration and social software services.

Today T-Mobile CTO Cole Brodman shared a number of data points regarding T-Mobile's Android customers. T-Mobile apparently has high hopes for Android adoption, as it is planning to roll out its very own T-Mobile Channel in the Android Market. It will also make carrier billing a reality later this year.

Techies are seeking professional certifications in emerging areas like healthcare and green IT, and especially old standbys like IT security, according to a new survey.

Discussing Microsoft's new price cuts for cloud apps, my colleague Mary Hayes Weier reported Microsoft VP Ron Markezich said he's seen no evidence that Zoho or others offering "fake Office capabilities" can match Microsoft Office. Counterpunching, Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu asks if that means Bing is fake search"?

While the U.S. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) promises big bucks to healthcare providers that implement effective IT solutions, healthcare providers wonder whether IT adoption is worth the effort. Speaking at a two-day hearing of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, healthcare providers said healthcare IT is a good idea in theory, but current proposals have many problems.

As my colleague Alex Wolfe noted, Linux hasn't made a dent in the desktop after years in the wild. The climb looks all the steeper now that Windows 7 and new versions of Mac OS X have arrived. I can think of a few other reasons why Linux hasn't achieved more than a fractional marketshare with end users, and they aren't pretty. (I've already donned my asbestos suit.)

If you thought $175 was a steep early termination fee to pay, get ready for some unwelcome news. In order to ward off scammers, Verizon Wireless is giving serious consideration to doubling its ETF to $350 for "advanced" -- read: expensive -- devices. Whoa.

Analysts who've lately focused on a Cisco's decade-long buying binge will surely weigh in on the networking powerhouse's Monday announcement that it plans to acquire Hong Kong set-top-box maker DVN. Yet most of these financial musings, which focus on Cisco's stock price, are missing the point. It's all about bandwidth, stupid.

One of the most impressive Windows Mobile 6.5 devices announced in recent months, the HTC HD2, sports a massive 4.3-inch touch display and is powered by a speedy 1GHz Snapdragon processor. If you were worried it would only be available in Europe, rest easy. Today, HTC confirmed that this powerful device is headed to a major U.S. carrier.

T-Mobile has reported a "service disruption" that is affecting most of the country. It seems to be inconsistent. Some people are reporting a total outage while others report that either data or voice works, and a few are reporting no problems at all. As of this writing, the issue still hasn't been totally resolved.

In a moderated discussion at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Booz Allen Hamilton VP Art Fritzson and senior associate Walton Smith shared their experiences integrating social and collaborative software into their consulting business.

One of the minor complaints that some have voiced against the Motorola Droid is that it isn't capable of performing multi-touch gestures, such as pinching to zoom. That complaint only applies to the U.S. version of the phone, though, as the Droid will support multi-touch in European markets.

You know the funny ads that Verizon Wireless has been running at AT&T's expense? The ads show AT&T's 3G coverage and compare it to Verizon Wireless's 3G coverage. The punchline of the commercial is "There's a Map for That", which riffs on Apple's "There's An App for That" ad campaign. Well, AT&T doesn't think the commercials are funny, and sued.

Now there's a way to read bedtime stories to your kids without actually being there. Jason Kottke calls the system "slick." I call it sickening.

IBM is consolidating its extensive global collection of individual SAP applications and versions into a single global instance that will deliver greater resilience and flexibility to IBM's operations in 170 countries around the world, revealed IBM CIO Pat Toole in an interview yesterday.

Most of the major Solid State Disk (SSD) manufacturers and providers are reporting record sales both in terms of units and capacity being purchased. Much of this success is being driven by cost reductions in the technology and an increased understanding of how to best implement the technology. Mainstreaming SSD is going to require more than just price drops, its going to require intelligent leveraging of the technology.

Oracle's acquisition of Sun is still grinding along, but while the gears are still turning I'd like to throw in a request: Make OpenOffice an open-core product. Keep the main program free, but charge for the useful bonuses.

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