Stories about: Macs

CNET blogger Don Reisinger has an interesting take on the biggest threat to the success of Windows 7: Journalists. His reason?

Microsoft may call the newest version of its operating system Windows 7, but you may want to think of it as Windows 6.5. In overall look and feel, it mimics Vista, although there are enough changes to make it far more than just a juiced-up service pack.

Parallels Tuesday launched Parallels Desktop for Mac 4.0, the latest version of the virtualization software that lets users of Intel-based Macs run other operating systems, including Windows, on their machines.

A startup called Ntractive believes so strongly in the growth of Macintosh use among businesses that it has based its CRM (customer relationship management) product on Apple technologies.

Mobile applications for specific business needs can offer a wide range of benefits for users: access to internal databases and server-based applications (anything from sales and product management tools to patient information systems) as well as custom tools such as loan calculators or internal process guides. Providing these types of tools on a mobile device means workers can access resources and perform job functions on the road or while meeting with clients with little more than a carrier's mobile data service.

Apple has no imminent plans to compete in the growing market for "netbooks," the small, inexpensive laptops that accounted for 5 percent of all US notebook sales last quarter, CEO Steve Jobs said Tuesday.

Apple continued to bash Microsoft's US$300 million Windows advertising campaign Wednesday with another television ad that knocked its rival's renewed Vista marketing effort.

Steve Jobs doesn't like seams.

Whenever Apple releases newly designed products -- meaning hardware offering more than just a speed bump -- the greater question is, "What does it mean?" That is, are the new features mere anomalies, or are they something truly new that will set the shape, material and design of the future?

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, the organization that sets technical requirements for processing credit- and debit-cards, Wednesday issued revised security rules, while also indicating next year it will focus on new guidelines for end-to-end encryption, payment machines and virtualization.

Worries about consumer spending, advertising and the ability of IT companies to raise money appear to have hit many tech stocks harder even than the overall market on Monday, one of the worst days on Wall Street since 1929.