The sky is not falling

This week saw data analyst firm IDC step forward with the prediction that some PC makers will fall victim to the current economic situation. This comes mere weeks after its earlier assertion that the IT sector will experience slower spending for the next four years.  Certainly, the feeling of gloom and doom is compounded by the New York Times' report that just over half a million jobs were shed in the United States in November alone--the largest one-month loss since December 1974.

Before you start subscribing to the mentality that "the sky is falling," rest assured that is not. In reality, life goes on.  If anything, the unrelenting progress in the IT industry is proof of that.

The war of the browser continues with Opera releasing the version 10 beta of its web browser. It has been the underdog so far, but the Opera team managed to pull off a perfect score of 100 in the grueling Acid3 test. In case you were wondering, even Google's Chrome achieved only 79 out of 100.

On the operating system front, Microsoft released the first public beta of Windows Vista SP2 earlier this week. Love it or hate it, the fact is that SP2 does represent a relatively significant upgrade to Microsoft's flagship operating system. Not content to wait on the sidelines to see if Microsoft's falling marketshare will drop further, IBM teamed up with Canonical and Virtual Bridges to offer a new Linux-based virtual desktop solution that it hopes will propel the company to the top.

And yes, Microsoft will be releasing eight security updates next Tuesday, of which six of them are listed as "critical." So, stop worrying. And start patching, will you? - Paul