To help add a social networking feel for Microsoft Outlook e-mail users, San Francisco startup Xobni has launched a beta service aimed at helping organize their e-mail inboxes by business and personal relationships.

As Outlook remains the most common program used for e-mail in corporate America, Xobni (available for download here) aims to make it easier for users to find e-mail addresses and phone numbers faster than simply relying on Outlook alone.

OpenSolaris -- Sun's open source version of the Solaris kernel first announced in 2005 -- has been made available on Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) distributed computing service.

Today at the CommunityOne Developer Conference in San Francisco, California, Sun Microsystems debuted its new OpenSolaris distribution which includes a small core operating system, a network package repository, application packages, and the Sun-developed Image Packaging System (IPS). The root file system of OpenSolaris is ZFS, which promises continual checksum capability and instant rollbacks to chosen states.

Plans to bring wireless Internet to Boulder, Colorado and the surrounding metropolitan areas are being put on hold over funding issues.

The consortium called Colorado Wireless Communities was tasked with getting the funding to build out the networks in 10 cities from Lakewood to Boulder, a roughly 150 square mile area. The group is now unsure whether it can raise enough money.

The embattled former CEO David Dobson will now hand over the reins of the Canadian-based software company to veteran IT executive Kris Hagerman, who joins Corel as interim chief from Symantec.

After running up a stock buyout bid from Corel's major shareholder, Vector Capital, Dobson quit his job at Corel late last month to take a position at an unidentified corportation. Dobson had been widely expected to stay on with Corel through June.

T-Mobile USA's UMTS/HSDPA network rollout last week in New York will now be followed by buildouts in 20 more markets, according to plan. Spokespersons say this upgrade will cover both voice and data traffic, contrary to prior reports.

The number four carrier in the US has reportedly spent nearly $5 billion on the 3G network, and has done little to hype up the upgrade. Device support is currently lacking, however the company has plans to add to the lineup of handsets within the next week to include the carrier's first HSDPA device, and several "all-in-one" handsets.

Amazon, the world's largest online retailer sued the state of New York, claiming its new law requiring out of state retailers to collect New York sales tax was unconstitutional.

Amazon filed the complaint with the New York state Supreme Court on April 25, claiming the law was vague and overly broad. It also told the court that it believes the law unfairly singles the company out.

Wi-Fi provider Boingo will offer Apple iPhone and iPod Touch owners the opportunity to enjoy 15 minutes of free Wi-Fi service at 28 airports located in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.

What's the catch? Users interested in the service will have to watch 15 seconds of video advertisements before having access to the Internet uninterrupted for 15 minutes.

To put a lid on bloggers' speculation about police getting "backdoors" to Windows security, Microsoft is starting to hush up on the subject. In an e-mail to BetaNews on Friday, a spokesperson described COFEE as a "customizable framework."

Despite releasing a few more facts on Friday about a controversial new tool for police officers, Microsoft has now vowed to stay mum on the "exact methods" used by COFEE (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor), as well as about what kinds of passwords -- OS or network, for example -- COFEE might be able to crack.

NBC News' educational arm NBC Learn has launched iCue: part social network, part news source for students age 13 and up, built upon NBC's vast video news archive.

iCue's learning environment is based on a concept called CueCards, which are video clips and related news stories fashioned into virtual trading cards. The content of these will focus on US history, government, and politics, as well as English language study and composition. CueCards can be collected, annotated, traded, indexed, and even integrated into games.

Sources have told the Wall Street Journal that Deutsche Telekom is looking into either a merger or buyout of the third-largest US wireless provider.

With the addition of Sprint's customer base, T-Mobile would become the largest cellular provider in the US, serving nearly 83 million customers. The news appears to be a repackaging of earlier rumors that first surfaced in March.

It is perhaps the biggest "no-go" in the history of the Internet industry. So in the absence of any Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Redmond, did Microsoft manage to move the needle in its direction in its fight to avoid becoming the #4 player?

Whether the idea was made popular by the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tse in the sixth century B.C., or by Michael Douglas' portrayal of "Gordon Gekko" in the classic 1980s movie "Wall Street," there's a notion that warriors don't enter into battles they haven't already won in advance. Maybe Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer hasn't read up on his philosophy or hasn't watched much AMC lately; in either case, he's the one holding an empty basket today, after shutting almost every door behind him on the way out of the Yahoo negotiations.

Once the premier video game conference, E3 is now losing major publishers with Activision saying it will take a pass.

Vivendi -- which owns Activision -- will also drop out of the Entertainment Software Association for "business reasons." Instead of being at E3, the company will have its own event at its Santa Monica headquarters during the show.

Late Saturday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a detailed letter to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang regarding his decision to drop his company's bid to acquire Yahoo. Here is the text of that letter in its entirety: