Apple is making a bigger play for putting its smart phone in the enteprise, while eWeek cites the best of the best.

Apple Tightly Couples iPhone 2.0 to Microsoft Exchange
In a move that will surely broaden the corporate appeal of the iPhone 2.0, Apple has made it a lot easier to integrate its popular smart phone with the dominant messaging platform in enterprise. Apple also stole a march on Microsoft by delivering a synchronization platform for integrating diverse Web applications before Microsoft. Unfortunately, not all the iPhone devices are as cheap as they might initially appear because the cost of the AT&T service plan is going up as it moves to deploy a 3G wireless network.

Winners of eWeek Xcellence Awards Announced
This is the year when many an unheralded vendor came to the fore this year to win recognition for being best in class across 12 different categories. The winners included Lumension, Sun, Marathon Technologies, Zenprise, Netuitive, Salesforce.com, CommVault, Gear6, Fujitsu, Wrike, Azaleo and BT.

Microsoft Says Virtualization Offering with Out Perform VMware
The management team at Microsoft told the faithful this week that Microsoft's new virtualization offering, a critical component of Microsoft's overall approach to a new dynamic computing model, will be substantially faster VMware. Meanwhile, as Microsoft makes a play for the server, VMware is making a bid to shore up its presence on the client while also enhancing its palette of management tools. Not to be out done, Symantec has partnered with Citrix to create its own suite of management tools for virtual environments while hinting at potential partnerships with Dell and Sun. All this activity leaves one wondering just who is going to win the coming war over virtualization management or whether the time has come to rethink systems management all together.

Recession Starts to Take its Toll on IT Salaries
IT workers are starting to feel the economic pitch but what may surprise some is how much they would be willing to give up to telecommute.

Google Looks to Make Search Terms Tracking More Useful
What was once a toy make become a critical element of every search engine optimization strategy now that Google has decied to let people see the underlying data in its Google Trends service.

Next Iteration of Browser War Breaks Out over Javascript 2
The powers that be are squabbling over how best to proceed when it comes to developing the next generation on browsers. Elsewhere, Microsoft looks to horn in on the growing popularity of Ruby-on-Rails with its own implementation.

Hewlett-Packard Launches 10 New Business Class Notebooks
As part of an unprecedented worldwide launch, HP is looking to specifically challenge Dell's dominance of the corporate notebook scene. But as applications continue to be influenced by all things Web 2.0, you have to ask yourself what is the difference a consumer and business-class notebook.

IBM Applies Web 2.0 Concepts to Lotus Notes
Big Blue borrows heavily from the world of social networking as part of bid to make the venerable Notes platform more relevant, while also partnering with Serena to help corporations build their own Web 2.0 applications. Of course, Microsoft has now started its own version of a Facebook type environment for its employees.

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