IBM announced new software and initiatives that will help companies handle the explosion of business processes and applications that are turning the IBM System z mainframe into a global hub of Internet-based computing. IBM is announcing new, easy-to-use software tools that will help meet the demand for more programmers writing mainframe applications for an SOA environment. IBM Rational COBOL Generation tools are based on new technology created at IBM’s Software Development Lab in Raleigh, North Carolina. To help independent software vendors (ISVs) develop and market new mainframe software applications, IBM is announcing Systems z for ISVs, a new worldwide initiative that provides software vendors with technical, sales and marketing resources to build applications that run on IBM middleware and System z.

A 20-year-old California man has pleaded guilty to launching a bot network attack that compromised computers at a Seattle hospital and several universities. Christopher Maxwell, a Vacaville, Calif., resident, was accused of intentionally damaging a computer he was not authorized to access and using it to commit fraud. He made the guilty plea on Thursday in federal district court in Seattle.

Examine the architectural and design changes planned for IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5, including a new Connect client, a new Web conferencing UI, policies, click to call, click to chat, A/V integration, and a new SIP solution to connect to external communities, including AOL and Yahoo.

In the wake of a series of data breaches in early 2005, the U.S. Congress seemed ready to move quickly on legislation that would require companies to notify customers when their personal information had been compromised. Now, more than a year after data breaches at ChoicePoint and LexisNexis set off a national debate about identification theft and data security, time is running out for Congress to pass a law before it finishes business this year. Some proponents of a national breach notification law say it’s unlikely that Congress will be able to pass a law by then.

Three weeks after the database server vendor announced the release of its April 2006 CPU, customers are still waiting for the several important fixes. The update, which addresses 36 different product flaws, is still undergoing quality assurance testing and is not yet available for download. On April 18, when the scheduled quarterly update was released, Oracle said the patches would be ready for download on May 1. Now, according to information posted on the company’s Metalink portal, some of the patches won’t be ready until May 15.

We continue our series of interviews with Lotus Business Partners. This week, I had the opportunity to interview Keith Vozel, Director of Marketing for Stampede Technologies, a company that specializes in what it calls Web 2.0 performance acceleration. This interview contains our first article-level editorial coverage of AJAX, an interesting new technology mash-up, so it’s a worthy read.

Read this DominoPower article.

IBM announced it has acquired BuildForge, a privately held software company based in Austin, Texas. Financial details were not disclosed. BuildForge helps customers automate their software development processes, as well as meet audit and compliance mandates. BuildForge software helps software development teams document what was created, how it was developed, and where the application was deployed.

A cyberattack that shut down Blue Security also felled thousands of blogs when the antispam site deflected the malicious hits, analysts said. Internet security company Netcraft said on Thursday that Blue Security temporarily dealt with the distributed denial-of-service siege by redirecting traffic to its journal at blog host Six Apart, knocking out that company’s TypePad and LiveJournal services.

Silicon Valley, Boston, and New York top the list of highest-paying metropolitan areas for technology professionals, according findings of a report issued May 3 by Dice, an online resource for technology professionals. Taking in factors including geography, skills, job demand and salaries, the Dice Report finds that the tech job market "continues to thrive" as job postings to Dice.com rose 31.1 percent over the past year to 89,286 postings. Salaries in Silicon Valley topped other metropolitan areas, followed by Boston, New York, Baltimore/Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.

CertFX announced a 30% discount on all IBM Lotus Collaboration Exams. IBM has announced the retirement of its collaborative solutions exams, with many exams scheduled to be retired August 1, 2006. Lotus Certification announced the advanced level certification exams to be released in 2006. These exams will qualify you for the advanced level certification status in Lotus Notes and Domino 7. The practice test for 190-773 IBM Lotus Notes Domino 7 LotusScript is available for pre-purchase.