Last week saw Australia`s Babcock & Brown acquire Eircom, Ireland`s dominant telecommunications company, for lb2.4 billion.

This week a new flaw affects Microsoft Word, a worm exploits instant messaging, spammers get scammed and a billing phisher gets jailed for 21 months.

Is government considering setting up its own competitor to Telkom? A careful read of minister of communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri`s budget speech implies this is so.

Hitting the headlines this week was a cellular war-of-words, and an exposure of internal wrangling at SARS, writes Dave Glazier.

Can technology keep my fear of abandonment at bay when my best friend goes away?

Last week saw poor attendance at Futurex, which is symptomatic of a product past its sell-by date.

Not content with dominating the digital music player market, Apple is looking to take a bite out of the business computer market too. Will going back to its roots bring Apple success?

A Trojan that deletes porn and pirated files, a man jailed for hacking his supervisor`s PC, and click-fraud botnets - security remains weird and... wonderful.

Dave Glazier wraps up the week`s top news: Telkom and BCX deal looks promising again, and MultiChoice reveals grand World Cup plans.

A few standard answers to standard questions and a serious case of mistaken identity fooled a BBC presenter into thinking she was interviewing an IT expert.

Silicon Graphics, a maker of high-performance computers, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Dave Glazier wraps up the week`s top news: government`s ICT plans in the spotlight, and SA ranks terribly in competitiveness rankings... again.