Messaging and groupware is at the heart of business and applications most people use everyday. While the big names like Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Google Apps are increasing their influence, enterprises have several viable open source options. Of course, there plenty of complaints about the quirks and complications of the bi- name groupware suites so perhaps it’s time to give the lesser-known options a try. In this installment of 5 open source things to watch, we take a look at open source groupware suites which can communicate without costing the farm.

I picked up my first Android phone at the beginning of this year — the Google Nexus One. Prior to that I had been a BlackBerry user and the IT organisations I managed all ran BES servers and only supported BlackBerry devices so the transition to the Nexus One was quite a significant one.

In 1950 Bell Labs researcher, Richard W Hamming, made a discovery that would lay an important foundation for the entire modern computing and communications industries. He had invented a code for correcting errors in communication and the Hamming code was born. CIO Blast from the Past takes a journey through 60 years of information theory and discovers how the Hamming code legacy lives on today.

In an uncharacteristically public way, Google has acknowledged modifying its search engine so it can identify businesses that provide bad service and lower their search results rankings accordingly.

Google has dived back into hardware, formally announcing its second smartphone, the Nexus S for US and UK consumers.

WikiLeaks' main website could not be accessed on Friday through its WikiLeaks.org domain name after a subsidiary of Dynamic Network Services terminated its domain name service.

If your help desk software is giving you trouble, there are some open source options available. In this part of CIO's five open source applications to watch we take a look at help desk software, which is the basis of incident response and IT service delivery.

Collecting money from customers should be the easy part of your business, but a contrary billing system can make life unnecessarily difficult for CIOs. In this edition of 5 open source products to watch, we take a look at billing systems. They’re open source, Web-based and can be extended and integrated to suit specific needs.

One of the critical factors for project success is having a well-developed project plan.

As CIOs battle the influx of tablet devices in the workplace, deliberation over enterprise adoption strategies is on the rise.

Victoria’s failed smart meter rollout has prompted a radical shift in the way that smart grids are viewed by the energy sector, according to Logica.

Business intelligence (BI) is frequently among the top prioroties for CIOs and finding the right software to do the job is always a challenge. Cloud-based software may be all the rage, but CIOs must still manage in-house information and make better use of it through analytics and reporting tools. The big four software companies have all made strategic investments in the BI space over recent years and the options have dimnished, but there are alternative tools popping up and snatching a lot of customers in the process. This installment of '5 open source things to watch' is all about BI that doesn't scar the annual report.

Don’t wait for the New Year - start looking for a new job now - is the recommendation of one recruitment agency which predicts a soft market in 2011.

Whatever the incarnation, Enterprise Resource Planning is at the heart of every business with the world’s largest software companies are all clamouring for a piece of the action. The big vendors may scoff at the idea of an open source ERP suite, but given the success rate of traditional ERP projects, CIOs could do worse than take a look at free options. In this edition of 5 open source things to watch, we take a look at ERP suites where the barrier to entry – for testing, at least – is on the small side.

WikiLeaks has asked the Web community to open mirror sites so it cannot be downed or censored and said Monday that 355 new sites are already up.

Jon Rubinstein, known for his role developing the original iPod for Apple and for running Palm, has left Hewlett-Packard, where he's worked since the company's acquisition of Palm.

Aneesh Chopra, who has served for the past two-and-a-half years as the first CTO for the U.S. government, is stepping down in early February.

It was another busy week for hactivists attacking the online targets of their ire. This time, hackers under the banner AntiSec appeared to have hacked the website of OnGuardOnline.gov, the U.S. government's online security website, in protest against the much-railed-against legislation Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) as well as other bills regarding intellectual protection. Similarly, the group Anonymous is believed to be behind the distributed denial-of-service attack on Thursday that brought down the European Parliament's website in what is thought to be retaliation for European support for the shutdown of the Megaupload file-sharing site the week before. Anonymous also opposes a treaty being ratified in Europe now called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. That deals with infringement of intellectual property rights.

Internet service provider (ISP), Internode, has introduced fibre to the home (FTTH) plans at 20 real estate developments around Australia that align prices with its NBN services.

Security researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro have come across a Web-based attack that exploits a known vulnerability in Windows Media Player.

Nintendo said Friday its next-generation Wii U game console will launch in time for the holiday season in the U.S., Europe and Japan.

Tracking intrusions to the Tennis Australia network is easier this year due to an expanded partnership with Aruba Networks.

Although vendor-written, this contributed piece does not advocate a position that is particular to the author's employer and has been edited and approved by Network World editors.

Researchers with Symantec have uncovered additional clues that point to Chinese hacker involvement in attacks against a large number of Western companies, including major U.S. defense contractors.

For such a small device, the plastic, handheld USB flash drive can cause big security headaches. Even if you have robust end-point security and establish rigid policies about employee use of these drives, employees still find a way to copy financial reports and business plans for use at home. While other security breaches are more traceable, a flash drive is more difficult to monitor, especially after the employee leaves work.

Following last week's Backspin, reader Alex Gonzales (Sweetwater, Texas) wrote to me: "Just read your SOPA article and I guess I'm just not seeing the big picture. If the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) could put an end to online piracy and stop a lot of those damn viruses, maybe even stop hackers -- what's bad about that? You say bad for business, bad for Internet -- but how? How is stopping/policing the bad stuff on the Internet bad? Give me some real reasons as to why [SOPA/PIPA] is bad. And don't tell me to go read the SOPA/PIPA bills in their entirety."

Strathfield Council in Sydney’s inner west has deployed Apple’s iPad 2 to all councillors following a unanimous vote in favour of the move.

The district court in Mannheim, Germany, has again sided with Apple in a patent suit brought by Samsung Electronics, saying on Friday that the company had not infringed on a second patent asserted by Samsung against the iPhone and iPad.

Telstra has today released an assistance package for residents and small businesses in and surrounding the flood-affected Tweed Shire region.

When investment firm Edison Ventures decided to contribute the majority of a recent $16 million round of funding for application delivery controller provider Kemp Technologies, investment manager Lenard Marcus acknowledged that some initial risk was incurred.