As more and more companies turn to Linux for mission-critical operations, making sure IT staff have the necessary skills is becoming more important than ever.

Google revealed its Google+ Pages for business this week. While they are a must for any business playing in the online space, however, they still leave a lot to be desired when stacked up against arch-nemesis Facebook Pages. We are only seeing the first stages of Google+ and the network may develop over time into something more useful for business, but for now the service doesn't even come close to the services that Facebook offers business.

Google has spent more than $1.4 billion on online properties and businesses in the last nine months. The Web has been buzzing about its purchase of the Zagat restaurant review brand, but the true goldmine for small businesses is with the new Google Offers.

When RIM released the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet in April, the tech sphere was overwhelmingly unimpressed. The lack of native email didn't help.

On Monday, we polled IT and business leaders about how they're using public and private clouds. The respondents to our pair of suveys who say they are well on the way to a completely virtual data center outnumber those who haven't started using the cloud at all.

Laptops used to be the only devices on the company's wireless network. But Wi-Fi has become a ubiquitous standard used by a host of devices -- including desktop PCs, laptops, netbooks, tablets, smartphones, printers, storage devices, and projectors.