Dell has announced its intention to acquire IT security firm SecureWorks, which offers managed-security services, security and risk consulting services and threat intelligence solutions. Dell says the buy would expand its IT-as-a-Service offerings and information security expertise.

Rackspace announced that it has acquired Cloudkick, which creates web apps for cloud-server management. 

Rackspace considers the move a way to better position itself in Silicon Valley, as Cloudkick was originally funded by Y Combinator, and its headquarters is in San Francisco, "making Cloudkick’s headquarters the latest outpost for delivering Fanatical Support and innovation in cloud computing," a representative for Rackspace tells WebProNews.

CareerBuilder released some survey findings this week, indicating that over a third of employers in the U.S. are using social media to promote their company, but it’s employee use that still has some businesses worried.

HP has acquired Stratavia, a database and application automation company out of Denver.

HP says the addition of Stratavia will help strengthen its software and solutions portfolio, adding deployment, configuration, and management solutions for enterprise databases, middleware, and packaged applications.

HP’s goal is to simplify app deployment and management in hybrid IT environments.

After launching multi-domain support a couple weeks ago, Google has now launched user policy management for Google Apps. These features are designed to give IT administrators greater control and flexibility within Google Apps, the company says.

Google has announced some new mobile device management options for Google Apps administrators. The options will be available to all Google Apps Premier and Education customers starting this week.

New options include:

Even as social media has grown to be a much more widely accepted form of communication among businesses over the years, there is still plenty of data out there depicting the flaws and setbacks that can occur when social networks are used in the business environment.

Update: The European Commission has reportedly approved Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Now the deal only needs approval from Chinese and Russian regulators.

Original Article: Oracle is acquiring Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion in cash at a rate of $9.50 per share in cash.

Symantec has put together its "State of the Data Center" report, which is the product of a survey of 573 businesses in 26 countries.

HP announced today that it is acquiring 3Com, makers of network switching, routing, and security solutions, for $2.7 billion in cash (at 7.90 per share). Both boards have already approved the transaction.

HP says the combination of these two companies will transform the networking industry and "underscore HP’s next-generation data center strategy." The company believes this will help customers simplify networks and improve IT service delivery capabilities.

Google has been pushing Google Apps use big time this year. They took out billboard space, and they recently sponsored a survey about IT departments and cloud computing.

The poll covered 1,125 IT decision-makers. Google has prepared an entire report based on the findings, which is available for perusal here (pdf).

Google is giving new Enterprise Search Appliance customers an "ROI JumpStart". What this means is they’re sending people to help you deploy it for two days. These people come from "select Google enterprise partners."

New customers who license a GSA covering one million documents or more by September 30 are eligible.

Google and the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology have signed a $10 million contract regarding business and workforce development in Egypt. Egyptian Minister of CIT, Dr. Tarek Kamel came to Washington D.C. this week with the goal of reinforcing bilateral relations between Egypt and the US, a representative for the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) tells WebProNews.

A survey of 1,300 IT professionals worldwide conducted by Websense reveals a majority of IT managers are still unsure what constitutes Web 2.0, and are ill-equipped to combat security concerns associated with social media. 

About 95 percent of businesses allow access to social media in the workplace, and 86 percent of IT managers surveyed reported being pressured to expand social media accessibility—most often from marketing, sales, and C-level executives—despite security concerns.

Google has announced the upcoming release of the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server. The goal is to make it easier for mobile users to use Google Apps on BlackBerry smartphones.

Beware the Ides of March, Shakespeare famously warned in Julius Caesar. The Ides of March bring a different madness in the modern world, usually associated with college basketball, and extends to your IT department. All that mad video streaming can have a huge impact not just on productivity, but also on the company’s bandwidth bill.

The Internet didn’t break yesterday, and if there was ever a day for that to happen it was Election Day 2008 in America. Akamai’s Net Usage Index for News recorded the highest number of website visitors per minute in history, placing Barack Obama’s historic win at the top at the chart.

Over the next five years spending on IT cloud services is expected to grow nearly threefold, reaching $42 billion by 2012 and accounting for 9 percent of revenues in five key market segments, according to a survey from IDC.

Spending on cloud computing is on track to accelerate during the forecast period, capturing 25 percent of IT spending growth in 2012 and close to a third in 2013.

"Exercise extreme caution when it comes to dismissing employees with knowledge of your IT systems," warns security vendor Cyber-Ark Software.

Gartner, an IT industry analyst firm, has published a report on what its analysts see as the top ten disruptive technologies for 2008 to 2012:

IT people, please don’t blame us.  We neither conducted nor responded to this security and compliance survey.  But the survey’s results indicate that some people (and perhaps a certain search giant) feel you’re not overly effective or efficient.