Since Mike Rhodin succeeded Ambuj Goyal as general manager of IBM’s Workplace, Collaboration and Portal software this summer, he has helped steer the company’s Lotus Software division to its third consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth. But despite these encouraging results, industry researchers continue to churn out figures showing that Lotus is losing market share to Microsoft’s Exchange. Rhodin sat down recently with eWEEK Staff Writer Shelley Solheim to share his view of the market and outline how he is moving Lotus forward.

In the ongoing battle to fight internal and external threats on the corporate desktop, IT staffers may be forgetting one very potent weapon in their arsenal–system lockdown. As corporate IT managers evaluate products and technologies designed to protect corporate Windows-based computers against the ever-present tide of spyware, worms and Trojans, they should also consider a more proactive solution–locking down end-user computers by restricting rights and permissions and, consequently, users’ ability to compromise their systems.

Technology Pathways announced the release of ProDiscover Basic, a new freeware version of the ProDiscover Family of Computer Forensic Software. ProDiscover Basic provides a complete computer forensic solution including the ability to collect, preserve, analyze, and report on computer evidence. ProDiscover Basic is an easy to use, GUI based, complete forensic package. It utilizes the same court accepted capability to image computer disk drives, create hash signatures for authenticity verification, perform comprehensive analysis, and create comprehensive reports as the rest of the ProDiscover family. ProDiscover Basic can operate on virtually all Windows based file systems and is limited to operating on locally attached disk and image files. It can recover deleted files, search unallocated and slack space for hidden evidence and can read and write dd images for compatibility with other forensic tools. ProDiscover Basic can even wipe used disk drives to prepare them to store evidence and avoid cross contamination. With its extensive integrated help capability and an electronic copy of the user manual, ProDiscover Basic is easy to use for computer forensic practitioners.

SimpleFeed, a maker of marketing RSS feed technology, released an update with simplified personalization, new statistics reports, a new Web-based management tool and more. SimpleFeed is used in marketing departments as a means of communicating with customers about recent news, events, research updates, customer forums, support updates, blogs, sales promotions, and the like.

Online criminals shifted their attacks in 2005 from operating systems such as Windows, to media players and software programs. Among the software programs under attack are antivirus software, according to the SANS Institute. Attackers are changing their targets after Internet service providers and operating systems designers such as Microsoft started shoring up their systems following a barrage of worms, viruses, and other online threats in recent years.

Amazon.com has won what could have been an embarrassing and expensive dispute over whether its 1-Click checkout system was patented by another company. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears patent appeals, upheld a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to Amazon.

Foreign governments are the primary threat to the U.K.’s critical national infrastructure because of their hunger for information, a British government agency said. The National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre said the most significant electronic threats are content-based, targeted, Trojan horse email attacks from the Far East.

The ThinkPad is gearing up for its return to retail, starting with a partnership between Lenovo and Office Depot. Consumers will be able to purchase either a ThinkPad Z60t wide-screen or a ThinkPad T43 with biometric fingerprint readers. Other ThinkPad products will be available online and for special order in store starting at $699, Office Depot said. The computers are expected to compete with similar designs from Office Depot’s other PC suppliers: Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Toshiba.

BrightCom announced the release of version 2.0 of VIMS (Versona Instant Messaging System). By completely eliminating the cost of a client side deployment and providing full cross-platform support, VIMS made an immediate impact since its release in May of 2004 within the instant messaging market. Version 2.0 extends the feature-rich instant messaging solution that included centralized software management, enterprise class security and directory integration by extending instant messaging with high-quality video. VIMS integration with ClearView video solutions provides instant messaging users to immediately share high-quality video and audio through their instant messaging client at a fraction of the cost of traditional video conferencing solutions.

The newest version of Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .Net, makes it much easier for developers to deploy .Net programs. The Mono Project, which is sponsored by Novell, provides the software needed to run and develop Microsoft .Net client and server applications on Unix, Solaris, Linux and several other operating systems. Microsoft .Net runs only on Windows platforms. The brain-child of the noted developer, Miguel de Icaza, Mono has faced an uphill battle from development to production system. One major reason for this has been that it’s been unable to auto-host Web applications.