Microsoft issued a critical security alert Wednesday. ITworld.com reports that a security hole could allow an attacker to run code of their choice on a vulnerable PC by exploiting a problem in MSN Chat, MSN Messenger and Exchange Instant Messenger.

eWeek has this story about Microsoft’s drive into more mission-critical computing. According to the article, Microsoft’s customers are pushing the company to provide more industrial-strength management tools to ensure the high-availability and reliability those systems need. Microsoft is working on two projects to meet those demands. One project will address server management, while the other will focus on client management.

Newsfactor has an article that talks about the future of viruses. This article talks about several worst-case scenarios, including a virus that will take advantage of presently unknown or more obscure vulnerabilities.

Emeris Technologies announces that it has formed a distribution agreement with Montreal-based documens group to launch its Annotis Mail annotation software into retail outlets across Canada. The Annotis Library includes a series of image stamps, known as Annoticons. Annotis Mail integrates into a user’s current email application and is available in English, French, Spanish, German and Russian.

Adomo, Inc. offers a line of speech enabled server appliances that provide hands free access to Microsoft Exchange through a telephone. You can access your email, read and reply. AdomoMCS also provides access to the Outlook calendar. You can check appointments, schedule new appointments and invite attendees.

USA Today reports that Good Technology will offer a corporate email system that will compete with Research in Motion’s Blackberry device. Good’s new system will deliver Microsoft Outlook to handheld devices.

Steve Jobs on Monday talked about the next major upgrade to OS X, code named Jaguar. OS X’s mail program will allow the merging of several mailboxes, improved compatibility with Microsoft Exchange servers, and better junk-mail filtering.

Some of us have received a whole bunch of copies of the first OutlookPower Update. We’re not sure what’s going on, but we’re looking into it. We’ve got a full week before our next update is due, so there’s plenty of time (we hope!)

The Miami Herald reports that several weeks after it first appeared, variants of the Klez computer virus continue to plague computers around the world. A British company called Sophos found that the two most recent variants of this virus, Klez-G and Klez-H, were responsible for 77.8 percent of all virus attacks reported last month.

InfoWorld has this interview with Sendmail’s CEO, Greg Olson. In the interview, Olson talks about the relationship between Sendmail and other email systems and spam filters.