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If you've been using Microsoft Word for the past quarter of a century, it can seem like Word has always been the top dog of the word-processing world--and for years, it's been incorporated into Microsoft's Office suite. Today, Microsoft's domination is so complete that, from the public's point of view, there is almost no "word-processor market." (Does anyone remember Lotus Manuscript?)

The Internet was built on a very simple idea: People should be able to communicate more easily with one another, using their computers. So it should be no surprise that communication -- particularly in the form of e-mail and instant messaging -- is still at the heart of why most people go online.

When it came time for Washington, D.C., to create a new intranet for city employees, spending US$4 million on a site based on proprietary portal software just didn't seem like a good idea to CTO Vivek Kundra. But using Google Apps did, he said in an interview Tuesday.

What's the most popular application software in the world? Most likely, Microsoft Office. You use it, your colleagues use it, your relatives use it, and just about everyone you know uses it.

Trying to secure laptops, cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices today is "terrifying," says Christopher Paidhrin, IT security and HIPAA compliance officer at Southwest Washington Medical Center. "End-point security is scarily immature."

On stage at DEMO: A computer algorithm that uncovers media bias, and new ways to watch television, create music, manage money, and spy on IT workers.

The release of Adobe's AIR runtime platform was supposed to inspire the development of sophisticated business applications to take advantage of its media-rich capabilities.

Developers who adopt the Google App Engine for their cloud computing platform today may fear data lock-in, since the only way to import or export data is using a Python-based API. Google is working on a tool to improve data exchange to improve data portability.

Adobe's PDF (Portable Document Format) is one of the most popular ways to distribute printed information electronically.

The news that US telecommunications provider AT&T has joined the rapidly growing ranks of cloud computing providers reinforces the argument that the latest IT outsourcing model is well on its way to becoming a classic disruptive technology.

Call it the great multicore discord: a parade of major hardware and software vendors promising desktop applications powered by multicore chips yet all marching out of step, leaving confused software developers in the dust -- but times are changing.