Google deals, Microsoft's Azure, IT money woes

studies done by the magazine in March, July and October.

7. 'Ruthless' Trojan horse steals 500K bank, credit card log-ons: A Russian cybercrime group has for almost three years maintained the Sinowal Trojan horse, which has stolen log-ons for more than 300,000 online bank accounts and about as many credit cards, RSA Security said. "The sheer enormity of this makes this unique," said Sean Brady of RSA. "And the scale is very unusual."

8. New Android apps a mixed bag, should improve: Some of the first applications for the Android mobile OS market crash the G1 phone and otherwise don't work so well. One application uses commands written in Chinese. But analysts expect that better applications will soon be out as developers work on more of them and as the Android open-source developer community matures. Android is Google's mobile OS and so far is available on just the G1 phone, which T-Mobile USA started selling last week.

9. IBM sues to block executive's move to Apple: IBM sued Mark Papermaster, a 26-year veteran of the company who wants to take a job at Apple, where he would work with CEO Steve Jobs. IBM doesn't like that idea -- Papermaster, who was vice president of the company's blade server development unit until his Oct. 21 resignation, is an expert on its Power microprocessors, and the company isn't keen on that knowledge going to Apple. He also signed an agreement in 2006 that he would not take a job with any competitor for a year after he left IBM.

10. Wall Street Beat: Financial reports confirm fears for IT: Motorola, Sun Microsystems, SAP and STMicroelectronics reported quarterly financial results this week and contributed to confirming that the U.S. economy is headed into a recession. Economic and IT sector reports added to that evidence.