Most corporate workers already spend their days using Microsoft Office. The company’s goal now is to get more servers to follow suit. With an already commanding share of the desktop market, Microsoft these days is trying to transform Office into a tool that is deeply tied into a company’s core business processes. In Microsoft’s ideal world, Office serves as the friendly, familiar interface for the massive databases that hold a company’s customer and other information.

Qualcomm has pushed out an update for its Eudora email client to fix multiple security flaws that put users at risk of computer hijacking. San Diego-based Qualcomm said the new Eudora 6.2.1 corrects several vulnerabilities reported by research firm NGSS (Next Generation Security Software Ltd.) Secunia has slapped a "highly critical" rating on the flaws and is urging users to upgrade immediately.

Microsoft’s February Patch Day will be a busy one for IT administrators. The software giant on Thursday announced plans to release 13 security advisories on Feb. 8, including "critical" fixes for Microsoft Office, Windows Media Player and MSN Messenger.

This update to the Intelligent Message Filter SmartScreen filter contains updated spam characteristics that improve the ability of Intelligent Message Filter to block unsolicited commercial email messages, also known as spam. You must have Intelligent Message Filter installed to install this update.

The Exchange 2003 Academy will prepare attendees to design, deploy and manage Exchange-based solutions. Attendees are expected to have a working knowledge of Windows 2000, so the Academy will focus on new architectural features and functionality with emphasis on solutions, best practices, and the lessons learned through hundreds of customer engagements in the last three years.

The father of Java, James Gosling, has questioned the technical relationship between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft, in light of the antitrust demands of the European Union on the world’s biggest software maker. Questioned about the technical collaboration required under last year’s much-publicized agreement–under which Microsoft paid Sun $1.95 billion to resolve antitrust and patent issues–Gosling told delegates: "We’re still trying to work out what that agreement means. In some levels, it’s actually meaning less and less."

ZDNet has coverage of three new worms that are circulating. The new Bropia offshoot, which uses MSN Messenger to spread, is packaged with a second, more damaging worm. A mass-mailing worm claims to offer photos that show Saddam Hussein killed after trying to escape from custody. And finally, a Trojan uses the distraction of a picture of an old man making a silly face while it installs malicious code.

A 16-year-old sophomore at Clements High in Sugar Land was charged with a misdemeanor that could bring jail time and a stiff fine. The boy admitted rigging a keystroke-recording device onto his teacher’s computer after Fort Bend Independent School District police confronted him. The scheme was uncovered after authorities learned that the boy had attempted to sell answers to exams.

Motorists who talk on cell phones are more impaired than drunken drivers with blood-alcohol levels exceeding 0.08, according to research conducted in 2003. And it doesn’t matter whether the phone is hand-held or handsfree. Any activity requiring a driver to "actively be part of a conversation" likely will impair driving abilities.

Microsoft downplayed the significance of a reported flaw in its latest update to Windows XP. Responding to a Russian security company’s claim that it found a way to beat a protective element of Microsoft’s Windows XP Service Pack 2, the software giant on Tuesday said it does not believe the issue represents a vulnerability. In fact, the company said the technology highlighted by Moscow-based Positive Technologies was never meant to be "foolproof" and added that the reported flaw does not, by itself, put consumers at risk.