Cisco Systems said it’s partnering with Microsoft to create a package of communications tools geared for businesses. Part of its efforts to diversify and expand its revenue stream, San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco is launching the "Cisco Unified Communications" system that will integrate voice, data and video products and applications.

U.S. Representative John Campbell (R-Calif.) introduced legislation to permanently protect Internet commerce from discriminatory taxes and disallow taxation on Internet use. The new bill amounts to an amendment of the 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act, which is set to expire in November 2007. Campbell is seeking to extend the deadline on the tax ban indefinitely.

Here’s a real caffeine jolt–heart attacks might be a risk for coffee drinkers with a common genetic trait that makes caffeine linger in their bodies, a study suggests. Research on more than 4,000 people in Costa Rica found that about half had the trait and were considered "slow caffeine metabolizers." The other half had the opposite trait, which caused their bodies to rapidly break down or metabolize caffeine, and coffee-drinking in this group appeared to reduce heart attack risks. Among slow-metabolizers, those who drank two or more cups of coffee daily were at least 36% more likely to have a non-fatal heart attack than those who drank little or no coffee. Even higher risks were found for younger slow metabolizers–those under 50. They were up to four times more likely to have a heart attack than slow metabolizers in their age group who drank little or no coffee.

Microsoft is giving individuals who sign up for its certification exams two chances to pass the test. The company said recently that for the second year in a row, it is offering a second chance to anyone who has scheduled a certification exam between February 15 and June 30. If someone fails the exam on the first try and needs to take it again, they must complete the second test before July 31, said Noury Bernard-Hasan, the director of certification marketing at Microsoft. Candidates for certification can schedule the exams through one of Microsoft’s exam delivery partners. The offer applies to anyone who has scheduled a Microsoft IT Professional, Developer or Microsoft Dynamics Certification.

An Israeli couple has been charged with corporate espionage after they were discovered engineering and distributing a Trojan horse application that is credited with several cases of data theft. The Tel Aviv District Attorney filed the 65-page indictment Sunday and announced that prosecutors had entered a plea bargain agreement with the two defendants. The couple, formerly residents of London, were extradited to Israel.

Microsoft said on Tuesday it had acquired Apptimum to gain technology that helps Windows users more easily migrate applications from old PCs to new PCs. Apptimum is best known for its Alohabob PC Relocator tool, which allows users to transfer applications to new machines without having to reinstall them. Microsoft will first offer Apptimum’s technology as an optional download for the Windows Vista operating system set to ship later this year.

Jcx.Software has announced the availability of VS.Php version 2.0, a PHP editor for Visual Studio 2005. The new version of VS.Php allows developers to build, edit and deploy open-source PHP applications using the familiar interface of the popular Visual Studio IDE. New features in version 2.0 include Jcx.Software’s integrated Smarty/PHP editor with Intellisense and other rich editing features provided in Visual Studio, company officials said. PHP is a server-side HTML embedded scripting language. It provides Web developers with a full suite of tools for building dynamic Web sites.

Both the Tories and Lib Dems have backed government measures to increase penalties for UK computer hackers. Anyone hacking a computer could be punished with 10 years’ imprisonment under new laws. There will be a clearer outlawing of offenses like denial-of-service attacks in which systems are debilitated. The bill – which was being debated for the first time in the House of Commons on Monday – would also boost the penalty for using hacking tools.

Microsoft’s chief technologist Ray Ozzie on March 7 showed off his next great big idea: a virtual clipboard to "wire-the-Web." What he proposes he calls a "Live Clipboard" for copying all the information from a Web site, then pasting it onto another site, or feeding all that data to a software program for processing. This is all significant to Microsoft, and moreover the technology industry, because Ozzie is the brains behind a new Microsoft strategy for selling software. So what he’s thinking provides great insight into how Microsoft intends to carry out its "Live" strategy. The strategy is to sell consumers and businesses Microsoft services that extend its packaged software’s capabilities, using an on-demand Web setting.

Reader John Montel beseeches the "OutlookPower Gods" for help on how to hide fax numbers. We turn to Outlook God Mike Sperry for a detailed and helpful answer, which you can read in this article.

Read this OutlookPower article.