The East Coast needs techies, according to a report released Thursday by online recruiting company Dice. From the beginning of the year to June 1, job postings on tech-focused Dice.com rose 26 percent to 69,957, with strong gains in three eastern cities. Postings for jobs in the Philadelphia area jumped 41 percent to 2,888, listings for jobs in the New York region climbed 38 percent to 8,644, and those for positions in Boston and its suburbs rose 36 percent to 2,257.

Sybase’s iAnywhere Solutions announced the newest version of its Afaria frontline management and security software. Afaria 5.3 expands management and security capabilities for wireless devices, allowing enterprises to easily leverage the always-on capabilities of this rapidly growing class of mobile technology. Also, new integration with Microsoft SMS 2003 enables enterprise-wide device management from a single SMS console.

Many anti-spyware programs scour computer hard drives for those data-tracking files called cookies that we often get from Web visits. Microsoft ‘s tool does not. And there are disputes aplenty about whether certain widely used advertising programs circulating on the Internet are clean of spyware. No surprise, then, that there’s little agreement on what should be considered spyware, and what adware is exactly. Or on whether adware, which delivers ads, is a form of spyware or a breed apart.

Microsoft announced it has closed its acquisition of privately held security company Sybari Software. The East Northport, N.Y., software maker’s products were designed to work with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes messaging servers. Its Antigen file-filtering software promises to fight off viruses and spam on networks.

SAP has agreed to buy Lighthammer Software Development, a maker of business tools for the manufacturing industry, the German software giant said Wednesday. SAP said that the Lighthammer buyout will further strengthen its position in the market for so-called manufacturing intelligence tools, or analytics software, as well as tools for worker collaboration in the industry.

Hidden costs, high staff turnover and poor cross-cultural communications are the key causes of offshore outsourcing failures, according to new research from analyst house Gartner. The analyst report predicts global spending on offshore outsourcing services will top $50 billion by 2007 but it warns too many companies are rushing into deals on the promise of unrealistic cost savings. The biggest mistake that is common to all offshore outsourcing failures is to base the business case solely on reduced labor costs.

IBM is expected to begin a beta test program for its data-integration software, including the flagship product of recently acquired Ascential Software. Big Blue bought Ascential in March for $1.1 billion and said that it intends to meld the company’s software into IBM’s existing line. Ascential’s data integration programs are used to transport and "clean," or format, corporate data so that it can be stored in a single place and analyzed.

The percentage of women in the information technology work force declined from a high of 41 percent in 1996 to 32.4 percent in 2004, according to a report Wednesday by the Information Technology Association of America trade group. The shrinking representation of women is due largely to the fact that one out of every three women in the IT work force falls into administrative job categories that have experienced significant overall declines in recent years, the ITAA said.

Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit, the basis of the computer chip revolution and foundation of what is now a trillion-dollar industry, died of cancer on Monday. Kilby, 81, made the discovery 47 years ago, when, as a recently hired engineer at Texas Instruments Inc., he was left to work alone in a laboratory while most of his 7,500 colleagues were taking a company-wide summer vacation leave. By hand-wiring together multiple transistors, Kilby’s invention

IBM has finalized a $1.6 billion outsourcing and consulting deal with NiSource, in which it will take over many of the energy company’s business support tasks. Under the terms of the 10-year deal, IBM will operate business processes in such areas as human resources, accounting, procurement, customer service, IT and billing. In addition, there will be other consulting services involved.