Offering up a specialized service designed to cut out inefficiencies in corporate IT systems, Hewlett-Packard announced its HP IT Shared Service portfolio. The purpose of the service is to rearchitect systems so that IT functions can be consolidated on fewer systems and then served up across an enterprise through a service-oriented architecture software layer. The offering is part of HP’s Adaptive Enterprise strategy announced several years ago. By consolidating corporate IT resources, a company can provide services to different departments and charge those departments according to usage.

IBM has announced new software and services from its Tivoli division to automate and manage IT processes. The new software, called the IBM Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database, or CCMDB, along with three new IBM Tivoli Process Managers, will be available on June 30, said Mike McCarthy, director of strategy at IBM Tivoli. The new software is used for managing storage devices, addressing IT failures and deploying new software releases and patches.

At a ceremony held in Boston on May 23, eWEEK proudly announced the winners in its sixth annual Excellence Awards program. This year’s winners impressed the program judges with their ability to ease the complexities of today’s enterprise IT environment, especially given the challenges companies face in achieving and maintaining compliance with government, industry and other regulations. A June 19 special report issue will provide more detail on the finalists and winners.

Absolute PDF Server, the newest software release from Investintech.com, offers both PDF extraction and creation functions on a server base for the first time ever. This means that PDF conversion capability, instead of being available only on individual desktops, is now available to all units in an enterprise. For IT administrators, it means there is centralized administrative control over how documents are created throughout the organization.

Do you think you have what it takes to crack Malguard Systems’ box at the "L33T L3V3L?" Successfully hack their special "Hacme" box and you will truly be the elite. You could win $30,000.00 for a successful "uber" hack, and up to $20,000.00 if you are selected for a chapter in their book.

Working feverishly through the holiday weekend, Symantec’s security response team has completed patches for a "high-risk" worm hole in two enterprise-facing product lines. The flaw, which could allow malicious hackers to take complete control of a system without any user action, was discovered and reported by eEye Digital Security. In an advisory posted May 27, Symantec described the issue as a stack overflow affecting the Symantec Client Security and Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition, two product suites targeted toward business and government customers.

European Union lawmakers are investigating a proposed tax on emails and mobile phone text messages as a way to fund the 25-member bloc in the future. A European Parliament working group is reviewing the idea, tabled by Alain Lamassoure, a prominent French MEP and member of the center-right European People’s Party, the assembly’s largest group.

Do you have what it takes to move upward in your IT career? Or enough juice in the skills department to weather an outbreak of outsourcing? Several longtime watchers of the IT jobs market say they believe tech workers’ impressions of what’s needed to succeed may be out of date, and offered eWEEK some tips on how to have the right stuff.

The FBI searched the home of a paparazzi agency’s co-owner to determine whether someone tried to hack into the computers of the gossip magazine Us Weekly. FBI agents seized at least one computer while searching Jill Ishkanian’s home in the Topanga Canyon area. The FBI took Ishkanian’s computer to see whether it had been used to access Us Weekly records.

Valence Media, which operates the file-sharing portal site TorrentSpy, has accused the Motion Picture Association of America of hiring a computer hacker to help garner information for use in the industry group’s copyright abuse suit against the site. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Valence claimed that the MPAA paid a known hacker to infiltrate the company’s IT systems looking for potential evidence. The filing further claims that the MPAA paid its hacker $15,000 to steal emails and screen prints from Valence’s servers, including client bills and the documents related to the firm’s technology infrastructure.