Arms merchant or army? That's a fundamental question for vendors in the cloud computing space. Do they just sell their tooling to any and all comers, who then become the actual purveyors of hosted infrastructure, developer platforms, and software? Or do they offer their own cloud-based services, perhaps even keeping much of their technology in-house for competitive advantage?

I’m not a big fan of Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL)’s generally closed business practices, especially when it comes to the art known as the iPhone app approval process.

How would the industrial age have looked if Ford could have patented the concept of the assembly line? It probably would have looked a lot like the current stage of the information age, where broad patents over business practices represent the legal foundation of American intellectual property law as it applies to software. Now, the Supreme Court is hearing a case that could blast those foundations with a truckload of dynamite -- and no one has a clue how they might rule.

A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report warns that the H1N1 flu epidemic could overwhelm the Internet if a flood of office workers suddenly shifts to working from home.

It’s dιjΰ vu all over again: Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) comes out with a new operating system, and we all scramble about trying to get compatible drivers online for all of our oddball hardware and software.