Citrix Systems is upgrading XenDesktop, acquiring Virtual Computer, introducing a new type of hardware-assisted thin client and initiating a cloud project in an effort to make its virtual desktop infrastructure offering more attractive.

The company is focusing on that effort at its Synergy user conference, which opened Wednesday and runs through Friday in San Francisco.

In most bring-your-own-device plans, employees are the ones bugging management and IT to support their personal devices for work. But VMware took a much different tack when launching its BYOD program late last year: All 6,000 employees in the U.S. must use their personal smartphones for work.

VMware adopted an aggressive 90-day window for employees to make the transition, which included a looming cut-off date when company-owned smartphones would stop working. "We went all-in" with BYOD for phones, says VMware CIO Mark Egan.

Small and medium-sized businesses are spending more money on IT, including adopting tablets, cloud services and virtualization to a greater extent, according to Spiceworks' State of SMB IT survey.

IT budgets at companies with fewer than 1,000 employees grew 6 percent in the first half of 2012 from the second half of 2011, and 15 percent year-over-year, according to the survey.

Nearly a third of IT managers have reported a security threat as a result of personal devices accessing company data, Juniper finds

Nearly nine in 10 executives and employees are using their personal smartphones or tablets for business and about half are doing so without the permission of their companies, a new study shows.

The 2012 IDG Enterprise Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) survey highlights the uptick in UC&C adoption and investments in the coming 3 years -- specifically in enterprise organizations -- demonstrating the value organizations place on technologies that enable consistent and connected communications between employees, customers and partners.

Most top-tier network service providers have reported their Q1 2012 results, and we've seen the same trends continue from previous quarters. Legacy voice services from traditional providers continue to decline in favor of wireless substitution and replacement by digital (VoIP) services. Cable companies continue to see a net gain for digital voice, although the growth rate continues to be in the slow single digits; much of this net growth is driven by small businesses converting to VoIP.

Getting a positive return on investment from a social media campaign is about more than tracking the number of your Facebook fans and Twitter followers. It's about linking the social strategy to measurable business objectives, according to Gartner, which says most businesses aren't doing this.

Jive Software has released a series of new updates in a move to expand functionality and allow for simpler adoption of its market-leading enterprise social collaboration offerings.

Jive is a pure-play collaboration service aimed at creating either internally or public-facing social networks for enterprises. The applications are delivered either on-premise or through a Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud offering and include a variety of use cases, but centre around the idea of a social intranet.