About 4.5 million Catholic school students will get access to Microsoft's Office 365 cloud e-mail and collaboration suite as part of a 3-year deal the software vendor struck with the Catholic International Education Office (OIEC).

Late last year, VMware launched a new bring your own device (BYOD) plan under which every one of its 6,000 U.S. employees was required to use his or her personal mobile phones for work. The mandate was more than a cost-saving measure. VMware appears serious about establishing itself as a leader in post-PC era enterprise computing, and getting intimate with the benefits and challenges of BYOD is essential to that plan.

The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) will provide email and collaboration applications to about 600,000 students via Microsoft's Live@EDU cloud suite, a project for which it also considered Google Apps for Education.

Although the U.S. Interior Department plans to replace its on-premise email servers with Google Apps' cloud-based Gmail, the agency will retain Microsoft Outlook and Office as its standard e-mail client and desktop office productivity software for end users.

The U.S. Department of the Interior has picked Google Apps to provide cloud-based email and collaboration applications to about 90,000 staffers, choosing Google's services over Microsoft's Office 365.

BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion (RIM) recently started shipping its brand new mobile operating system (OS), BlackBerry handheld OS 5.0. The new software packs a variety of cool new features and enhancements, including improved mail-folder management options; auto-correct and word-completion typing software; and a number of personal information management (PIM) feature-enhancements. (Note: Some of the new features require BlackBerry Enterprise Server BES 5.0.)

When Ben Fried left his post as IT managing director at Morgan Stanley and took over as Google's CIO in May 2008, he knew what he was getting into: supporting a user base full of technology experts and computer industry stars, like co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CEO Eric Schmidt and Vice President Vint Cerf. In a recent interview with IDG News Service, Fried spoke candidly about his job and shared tips and advice for fellow CIOs, including the urgent need for tablet device strategies. An edited transcript of the interview follows.

Have you checked your work e-mailtoday? If you're like most employees in the United States and United Kingdom, the answer is yes despite the fact that it is not only the weekend, but an extended holiday weekend for most workers in the US. A day off is becoming an increasingly foreign concept as workers stay connected virtually 24/7.

With spam hampering staff productivity and increasing helpdesk calls, Sydney-based plumbing suppliers company Plumbers' Supplies Co-operative Ltd has replaced an open source e-mail security solution with an network gateway appliance.

Does your holiday checklist include sifting through hundreds of e-mails the day before you return to the office? Will your BlackBerry be as essential as your swimsuit? Do you fear your "staycation" will turn into writing e-mails each day?

If your car says something about you, so does your personal e-mail address. Here's a look at the message -- and perhaps age -- you're projecting.