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IT has been shoved to the side in many businesses in which business unit managers can get the technology they want with an Internet connection and a credit card, not a project-management team and a bunch of whiney geeks from IT.

Once it was routine for Microsoft to dictate what applications or technology customers or other vendors had to use if they didn't want the big dog to bite. Now it's just ridiculous. No FireFox, Chrome or Safari on the ARM version of Windows 8? For how long, do you think?

Despite years of experience showing cloud and mobile computing not only increase productivity, but make end users happier and reap otherwise-lost hours of work while employees are at home, many IT shops still won't support work using personal devices.

Ten or 12 years ago Microsoft got its act together on security, churning out fixes quickly, taking aim at new malware and probing its own products for exploitable flaws. The founder of Kaspersky Labs warns Apple it must do the same or lose its market in a plague of malware.

Cell-phone carriers rely on reputation to sell their service, because they won't let customers test one network against another. PCWorld did test them, and found the networks everyone thinks are the best and the fastest are far slower than one barely known for its service at all.

Mac users may not want to hear it, but the debut today of a new version of a Trojan whose original version is less than a month old,shows malware writers are much more prompt about updating software for Macs than app developers ever were in porting Windows products to it.

Identity theft prevention vendor Identity Finder sifted through 3 million non-profit tax returns looking for accidental revelations of private data. They found almost half a million posted in public documents, 171,000 of which were unique.

The number, variety and abilities of smartphone exploits is growing exponentially, but few talk about the risk phones pose as entry points, not as a source of data leaks. Even if they're banned from sensitive areas, how can you keep them out without frisking everyone at the door?

Consumerization turned IT from an ivory tower into an upscale mall where users could get any kind of technology they needed to mesh with their own habits and sense of style. Obviously some people didn't realize you could take that kind of thing too far.

Nokia has applied for a patent on magnetic ink that vibrates when the owner's phone rings. Incredibly cool in some ways, it's also one of the worst ideas in personal tech in a long time. Even fans don't like Nokia enough to want it under their skin for the rest of their lives.

Google may never have given more than lip service to the slogan "Don't be Evil," but it struck everyone else as pretty significant. Now that it appears to prefer effective exploitation of customers and bullying of partners, it's clear if Google ever was Good, it certainly isn't now.