Business gets personal

The use of Facebook and Twitter in the workplace has increased dramatically and the crossover from personal to business applications is accelerating, reports The Technology Chronicles.

Palo Alto Networks does a twice-yearly study of applications used by employees at more than 200 clients around the world, including those in financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, government, retail and education.

The company says Twitter's micro-blogging service is the most popular instant message application while Facebook Chat had become the fourth most used instant messaging application, beating instant messaging applications from Yahoo and AOL.

Green IT initiatives can save money and cut carbon emissions, but using existing business software better can root out even bigger savings in non-IT processes says BusinessWeek.

According to Warren Wilson, senior analyst with Ovum, the corporate world needs to put a greater focus on how technology can help cut the vast majority of carbon emissions that aren't produced by IT.

"Tools such as virtualisation and power management, those are relatively well understood. What has not been appreciated is the potential of enterprise software to bring about energy conservation outside of the IT arena," says Wilson. Such software could help businesses expose the waste "embedded in business processes".

Etelos is adopting OpenID and Single Sign On (SSO) for its partners that sell business applications. The service will provide a single point of user authentication for business applications, reports ReadWriteEnterprise.

OpenID provides small businesses with an identity solution that gives them easier access to the applications they use. Etelos wants to use the technology with its Web business applications.

OpenID and SSOs provide a way for its customers to offer a simple identity solution that simplifies the process for managing applications.