Top 10: Palm Pre hype, EMC-NetApp tussle

Well, the week was busy enough with IT news that even with an actual technology link to our favorite baseball team (St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is suing Twitter), that story has not made the top 10. But with a lot of the current season to go, there is still hope that will change in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Palm gets top billing with its hotly anticipated Pre smartphone, going on sale this weekend. EMC versus NetApp in a bidding war for Data Domain got a lot of attention, too, as did Intel's planned acquisition of Wind River.

1. Full review of the Palm Pre: The Palm Pre goes on sale Saturday, which kicked the hype machine into overdrive this week. PC World's Ginny Mies has been using a Pre to review it, and she likes the new smartphone but was vexed by some hardware issues. Links to other Pre stories can be found at the bottom of Ginny's thorough review.

2. EMC bids $1.8B for Data Domain, Bidding war: NetApp counters EMC for Data Domain with $1.9B offer and Data Domain asks shareholders to wait on EMC buyout offer: There's nothing like a robust bidding war to snag the headlines. The latest acquisition tussle is between EMC and NetApp. First, EMC offered $1.8 billion for Data Domain. Then, NetApp offered $1.9 billion. Then, Data Domain told its shareholders that it will make a recommendation on EMC's unsolicited offer by June 16. In other acquisition news ...

3. Intel to acquire Wind River for $884 million and Intel buys Wind River to push Linux: Intel plans to acquire Wind River Systems for $884 million as part of its Linux strategy. Wind River develops operating systems, middleware and software design tools for embedded systems. The company is a market leader in the latter area.

4. WWDC preview: What we know, what we expect with iPhone 3.0: Apple's annual Worldwide Developers' Conference, its last scheduled event of this year, is next week, and as Dan Moren noted, the always-robust Apple rumor mill has been amped up to "ear-splitting, glass-shattering pitch." He offered a synopsis of what Apple has already publicly said about the highly anticipated iPhone 3.0, which is expected to be the conference scene stealer, along with taking some best guesses about all of the rumors regarding video and the new iPhone.

5. Hackers claim $10,000 prize for breaking into StrongWebmail: Telesign challenged hackers to break into its StrongWebmail. com Web site late last week, so a group of security researchers obliged the company, which provides voice-based authentication software. It looks like Telesign will have to ante up the $10,000 it said it would pay for a successful hack into the webmail account of StrongWebmail CEO Darren Berkovitz.

6. New DOS attacks threaten wireless data networks: Because we don't have enough to worry about when it comes to wireless network security, a new class of denial-of-service attacks are said to be a particularly nasty threat.

7. Microsoft faces Russian antimonopoly hearing: Microsoft might have violated Russian antitrust laws when it took Windows XP off the market there last year, the country's Federal Antimonopoly Service said. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 24. Otherwise in antitrust news ...

8. Some surprised by DOJ tech hiring investigation: The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the hiring practices of Google, Yahoo, Apple and other technology companies that have allegedly agreed not to hire each other's employees, according to The Washington Post. Although few details of the investigation have emerged, the DOJ's probe has some in the IT industry scratching their heads about why the agency is pursuing that antitrust issue when it seems there is so much else that should be investigated. (Though we realize it could be that we just have not heard about other investigations yet.)

9. Google plans significant improvements to Docs suite: Google is sprucing up Google Docs, promising significant improvements to its hosted suite of office productivity applications in the next 12 months.

10. Report: Steve Jobs returning to work this month: Steve Jobs is on track to return this month, as planned, from his medical leave, and he might even put in an appearance at Apple's WWDC next week (see number four). OK, so all along the word has been that he would return to work in June, meaning it would be more newsworthy if "people familiar with the matter" were saying that Jobs will not be back this month. But we have not included a Steve Jobs news entry in a while now, so there you have it, however much it might pain us that he trumped Tony La Russa this week.