Executives rarely use collaboration technologies, and some argue their usage would be more widespread if they set the example. When an executive uses a technology for communicating or collaborating, they force other managers and staff to use it too.

But what about CIOs themselves? eWEEK asked respondents whether they agreed with this statement: "The CIO of my company is a strong, visible advocate of collaboration." Eighty-two percent of top IT executives agreed. What do other IT staffers think? We have that data too: Just 60 percent of IT managers, directors and other IT executives who aren’t the top IT executive think their CIO is a strong advocate of collaboration.

Spam and virus threats to enterprise messaging security and compliance may level off this year compared to 2007, but social engineering techniques are evolving to challenge businesses and security software providers, according to a new report released by Google’s Postini team.

The report, released March 6 after Google’s Postini team commissioned the study to survey 575 IT professionals, found that Postini data centers recorded 57 percent more spam and virus attacks in 2007 compared to 2006. The size of spam emails also increased considerably as spammers included images, .pdf files, documents, spreadsheets and even multimedia files to spoof spam filters, according to report author Adam Swidler, senior solutions marketing manager for Postini.

IBM has unveiled new Lotus Sametime Advanced software and pledged to invest $1 billion to fortify its unified communications and collaboration strategy in the next three years through acquisitions, internal development and new services.

Detailed March 10 at a small press event at the company’s offices, Lotus Sametime Advanced integrates social networking profiles from IBM’s Lotus Connections suite to help corporate workers more quickly reach out to colleagues or experts to answer their questions.

The software also includes features persistent group chat and instant screen-sharing capabilities to facilitate continuous, threaded conversations, said Bruce Morse, vice president of unified communications software for IBM Lotus. Sametime Advanced will be made available for public consumption March 28.

From Ma Bell to Wintel, the IT sector tends to be defined by its 800-pound gorillas–the massive companies that have positioned themselves to grab a share of the daily computing activities of most every organization and individual.

These are the companies that many of us love to hate. On one hand, tech’s largest vendors provide the market influence and financial muscle to translate nascent technologies and standards into the consumable, supportable products that enterprises require to carry out their business. On the other hand, the fiduciary obligations that these titans owe to their shareholders compel them to squeeze out as much revenue–and pursue as much product lock-in–as their customers will accept.

It’s been an open secret that controversial SCO CEO Darl McBride was being forced out. Now, in an interview with the Salt Lake City Tribune, McBride admits that his days at SCO are numbered.

In the interview, McBride said, "Clearly when we draw up a battle plan for what we’ve been working for the last several years, trying to get SCO’s intellectual rights fought through in the courts and the marketplace, the endgame didn’t have this sort of outcome for me personally."

It was under McBride’s leadership that SCO launched its kamikaze attack on IBM, Novell, and the Linux community and business at large on the grounds that Linux had violated SCO’s Unix IP rights. SCO was never able to prove any of its IP claims in courts. What finally drove the company into bankruptcy was the continued decline of its Unix business, the costs of its never-ending lawsuits and–the final straw–a U.S. District Court ruling that Novell, and not SCO, actually owned Unix’s IP.

According to a survey released by Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing firm, 14 percent of CIOs say they intend to increase their headcount in Q2 2008, while only 2 percent anticipate reductions, painting an upbeat picture of the IT hiring landscape.

The net 12 percent hiring increase is up 2 percent from Q1, and at a level unchanged from one year ago. Firms in the business services sector, companies with 1,000 or more employees and those in the Mountain and West South Central United States were the most optimistic about hiring activity. For the third consecutive quarter, the networking job category led in employment growth, followed by help desk and end-user support roles.

Two of the biggest names in technology are working on developing the smallest of chips. IBM and Hitachi announced a new partnership that will focus on developing new technology that will help in the creation of 32- and 22-nanometer microprocessors. While the two companies have worked on various projects in the past, this announcement marks the first time IBM and Hitachi will collaborate on chip development.

Ray Ozzie’s keynote at the Microsoft MIX 2008 developer conference should be noted for what he showed developers, not for what he promised.

Ozzie uttered a lot of the usual bromides about Microsoft’s (and arguably not his) vision of software plus service: from the announced public beta of Office Live Workspace, an online collaboration space for Office productivity tools, to the vaguely defined SQL Server Data Services, also in beta, Microsoft still seems unprepared to fully embrace SAAS.

He wasn’t very convincing when he said that he looked forward to sharing more specifics about Microsoft’s enterprise offerings later this year, because as Joe Wilcox noted in not so many words, so much of what Ozzie said sounded like vaporware on a loop.

Trend Micro, supplier of network antivirus and Internet content security software and services, announced its message archiving solution designed to help companies archive with accessibility and encryption, reduce email management costs, and protect and preserve the integrity of their electronic data.

Trend Micro Message Archiver delivers a fast, on-demand email search capability so employees can quickly access any archived email without leaving Microsoft Outlook, or the need for IT support; installation time averages 30 minutes. The solution’s tamper-resistant design, combined with forensics technology that uses digital fingerprinting and encryption, ensures that emails are authentic and un-altered for automatic legal compliance.

Researchers are clamoring that this is the year you must deal with mobile security or get hit by phishing and malware attacks on the devices in your employee’s pocket.

Security pros are predicting users can expect these attacks and more in 2008. Twice in roughly the past week, security researchers at McAfee found mobile malware targeting users in China–the first time threatening Windows Mobile devices, while the most recently attack targeted Symbian Series 60 phones.