We've assembled a panel to examine the business impact of cloud computing, to explore practical implementations of cloud models, and to move beyond the hype and into gaining business paybacks from successful cloud adoption. Coming to you from The Open Group Conference in Boston, the panel tackles such issues as what stands in the way of cloud use, safe and low-risk cloud computing, and working around inhibitors to cloud use. We also delve into a compelling example of successful cloud practices at the Harvard Medical School.

The insane tug-of-war between Dell and HP for enterprise storage company 3Par has finally drawn to a close. We have a winner, if you want to call it that -- the final sale price is more than double the figure Dell initially put forward when it announced its intentions to buy 3Par a couple weeks ago, so who knows how much of that is real value and how much is just financial one-upsmanship. The battle was at its hottest last Friday, when the series of offers and counteroffers between HP and Dell escalated higher and higher by the hour.

On Aug. 13, IBM and Unica Corporation announced they had entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire Unica, a leading provider of marketing software solutions that focuses on streamlining marketing program development, execution and management to achieve improved marketing effectiveness. The acquisition is valued at approximately $480 million, or $21 per share, and is subject to approval by Unica shareholders. According to Aberdeen's research, this acquisition comes at a time when organizations are looking to automate some/all of their marketing process and campaigns.

The U.S. government spends $80 billion annually on information technology. The U.S. General Services Administration is directly involved in nearly 25 percent of federal IT procurement activities through its Schedule 70 acquisition program, including nearly $9 billion directly for information technology investments. GSA has emerged as a leader in guiding federal investments for information technology, a role that has been enhanced with its responsibilities for implementing the Obama Administration's "Open Government" initiative.

HP has won the bidding war it waged with Dell for data-storage company 3Par, whose shares were trading at $9.65 when Dell first tried to acquire it in mid-August. Dell decided not to match HP's $2.4 billion ($33 per share) offer, which topped Dell's bid of $32 per share. Dell first tried to acquire 3Par with an $18 per share offer on August 16, which 3Par initially accepted. HP jumped in, raising the stakes, and a fast-paced escalation ensued. Dell is entitled to a $72 million break-up fee from 3Par.

I like walled gardens. They are safe and, for the most part, keep out the predators. However, when one sneaks over the wall, the results can be ugly, to say the least. With the iTunes App Store, one of the key supposed advantages for end-users is that it is a walled garden, and Apple is providing a safe, secure environment you can trust in. Apple vets the apps that are approved and provides a mechanism that allows users to review apps. The company even set up the review process so that only those who download an app can review it.

I like walled gardens. They are safe and, for the most part, keep out the predators. However, when one sneaks over the wall, the results can be ugly, to say the least. With the iTunes App Store, one of the key supposed advantages for end-users is that it is a walled garden, and Apple is providing a safe, secure environment you can trust in. Apple vets the apps that are approved and provides a mechanism that allows users to review apps. The company even set up the review process so that only those who download an app can review it.

About the easiest way for companies to dip their toes into the social media waters is the blog. There are few technical burdens to setting them up, the time needed to create posts can flex with the workloads of the assigned writers, and they can become a conduit for customer conversations through the comments section. So every business is leaping eagerly into blogging. Right? Well, not exactly. There are a couple of things holding businesses back. First, as an editor, I'm painfully aware of how terrified some people are of "writing."

About the easiest way for companies to dip their toes into the social media waters is the blog. There are few technical burdens to setting them up, the time needed to create posts can flex with the workloads of the assigned writers, and they can become a conduit for customer conversations through the comments section. So every business is leaping eagerly into blogging. Right? Well, not exactly. There are a couple of things holding businesses back. First, as an editor, I'm painfully aware of how terrified some people are of "writing."

Recently, library chief Helen Josephine of Stanford University's Engineering Library said that the students' search through volumes of books to get to a formula that they want is basically at an end because "with books being digitized and available through full text search capabilities, they can find that formula quite easily." In fact, Stanford is building a new library for its School of Engineering with 85 percent fewer engineering books than the old library.