Microsoft put some meat on the bones of its software plus services strategy while Earth Day brought forward all kinds of ideas about saving energy.

Microsoft Adds Synchronization to Software plus Services
The missing link in Microsoft's grand plan to reinvent itself as the dominant Web platform was detailed this week. But questions remain as to whether Windows should be the target platform for the next generation of Web applications. In the meantime, everybody now seems to be a platform on the Web. In fact, just this week Sun announced a Web platform for developers, Bungee launched a federated hosting platform and Yahoo previewed a new BrowserPlus offering. The only remaining question these days seems to be who isn't a Web platform.

Ballmer Admits that Vista is Still a Work in Progress
After a recent spate of criticism Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer finally conceded what everybody else already seems to have known. But now that we can all look past this issue what is interesting is Microsoft's new subscription service, codenamed Albany, and how aggressively Microsoft is being when it comes to undercutting the pricing of Salesforce.com.

Earth Day Puts More Focus on Energy Consumption in the Enterprise
Whether you think green computing is hype or not, saving money on energy costs is hot right now so here are some suggestions for going green and some tips and ideas for solution providers focused on the opportunities that green computing might present. Not the least of which is a new energy surveyor tool and a new eco-consulting effort from Sun. Elsewhere, SAP is working with utility companies to make it easier for everybody to track just how much energy they are consuming in real time.

New IBM Systems Point the Way towards Lower Energy Costs
IBM has launched a new iDataplex system that promises to significantly reduce the cooling costs associated with high performance computing. At the same time IBM is taking some grief over X-Series System sales even as it blows out financial projections thanks oddly enough to demand for software products such as Lotus Notes.

Intel Drops Hammer on Prices Again
Just like it looked like AMD might be staging a comeback with a raft of new products led by new tri-core systems, Intel responds by cutting prices as it cites strong demand across the board as the primary driver for its latest financial results.

Wireless Mesh Network Gets a Boost from Ruckus
Just about everybody is disappointed these days with the reliability and costs associated with managing wireless networks but eventually we will have a robust 802.11 fabric of wireless networks.

Motorola Plans to Bring Virtualization to the Smart Phone
With multiple operating systems all competing to become the next dominant platform for smart phones it only make sense that customers will want the best of all worlds by being able to run multiple operating systems on the same device.

Enterprise Web 2.0 Spending to Reach $4.6 Billion
That's the latest prediction from Forrester, which is good news for companies such as Kapow and JackBe that have new versions of their tools that make it easier to bring the whole mashup concept to enterprise applications a whole lot easier.