Stories by C.G. Lynch

When Yahoo went public in April of 1996, no one suggested that Microsoft take the internet start-up under its wing. Wall Street would have laughed at such an idea.

This past February 2, at 5.15pm, Alan Boehme, 47, VP and CIO of Juniper Networks, left his office and climbed into his black 2004 Infiniti G-35. He pulled out of the company parking lot and began the 90-minute drive to his home in Half Moon Bay, a coastal town in Northern California's San Mateo County. Boehme's work had been going well. In December, he had completed an ambitious restructuring of the $US2.5 billion networking company's IT infrastructure, globalizing its operations and laying the foundation for its future growth.

With all the news about the Googles and MySpaces in the consumer space, it's sometimes easy to forget about Yahoo!, which made some recent additions to its popular consumer e-mail app over the weekend.

More companies are turning to outsiders for help with innovation. Learn how three organizations got the most from a partnership with an industry peer

This post by leadership expert David Piccione makes a shoddy argument that we're headed for another "technology crash," an opinion he admits will be unpopular given all the "hoopla" surrounding Web 2.0.

At Microsoft, developers will tell you that they "test their own dog food," using their own software before and after shipping to customers. Jo Hoppe, CIO of Pegasystems, prefers a classier term to describe how her colleagues utilize her company's business process management (BPM) software before it hits the market. "We're drinking our own champagne," she says.

When it comes to storing massive amounts of information, it's usually safe to assume that digital is simpler and tidier than paper. But when it comes to the US Security and Exchange Commission's online filing system, Edgar, even Chairman Christopher Cox admits that it's been an ineffective combination of the old and new. "It is really just a vast electronic filing cabinet," he told the US Senate subcommittee on financial services at a hearing in May. A new online system will truly digitize SEC financial records, utilizing extensible business reporting language (XBRL) to make the data more interactive.

Alph Bingham is the cofounder of Innocentive, an online marketplace that brings clients with complex research problems together with scientists and other problem-solvers. You can't corner the market on smarts. Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige once said, "None of us is as smart as all of us." It's been my experience that if you want to talk to smart people, you have to reach outside your core circle and your corporation. And what better way to reach other smart people than on the Web? Its characteristics of high bandwidth (lots of information per second) and "always on" are two key features that make it the globe's first truly useful collaboration tool.

Google has two hurdles in getting into the office applications space for large enterprises. One is security, which it addressed yesterday by purchasing Postini for $625 million (how about a beer in the parking lot to celebrate?). The second is patience, as Google waits for businesses to catch up with the reality that the web is becoming the true platform for 21st century business.

There are three types of people who wish Web 2.0 would go away. They are the old-schoolers, the contrarians for-the-sake-of-being contrarians, and the moral egotists. If you have any to add, please send me an e-mail or comment below.