Last week was momentous for Microsoft. On Wednesday, it officially released Office 365, its cloud-hosted application suite, and, as expected, the media was all over it. The NY Times, Huffington Post and Wall Street Journal weighed in, as did the usual tech pubs like InformationWeek, ZDNet and NetworkWorld.

A look at the hype surrounding Office 365.

Some of the press centered on the particulars — what exactly it is, how to use it, why you should care — while other reports looked at what cloud computing means for business, and for Google.

Of note is ZDNet’s report on a Forrester study, “The ROI of Cloud Apps,” which looks at points companies should consider before signing up.

And then there’s the blog post from Shan Sinha, Google Apps product manager — “365 reasons to consider Google Apps.” Be sure to read the comments section. Read more…

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What a difference a little style makes. If you compare the hype surrounding the release of Microsoft’s Windows 7 with that of Apple’s most recent gadget line, you’d think someone had died.

Gartner group is calling the new operating system “all but inevitable.” Sounds kind of like the flu.

Here is a sampling of the words that have been used to describe Windows 7: “much better”; “less prone to unexpected delays”; its impact on PC sales “won’t be huge”; and there are “good things to be had” with the new OS.

Sheesh.

In an opinion piece in Tuesday’s New York Times, Robert Cyran and Una Galani write that “if the key to happiness is low expectations, then Microsoft’s customers and investors have it in spades.” Read more…

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Summer’s over, but the recession isn’t. At least, not just yet. If you follow the news, you may have read that we are nearing the end, and that better times await. Meanwhile, the economy’s still a mess, and IT departments are faring no better.

IT departments become “garbage cans” of problems, solutions, opportunities and decision-makers.

Here’s a roundup of some notable news from the week: some is bad, some is good, and the rest is a little bit of both.

IT: Future-Focused or Stuck in Crisis?

Computerworld ran an opinion piece this week that should be mandatory reading for CIOs. In it, writer Thornton May makes a case for keeping the future in mind, even while in a recession.

May’s organization, the IT Leadership Academy, looked at more than 200 large, multinational enterprises in 20 markets and found that 61 percent of their IT departments have set aside thinking about the future as they try to make it through the present. Read more…

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