Fourth in a series. Well it can’t be done from the inside, so it has to be done from the outside. And the only outside power scary enough to get through the self-satisfied skulls of IBM top management is IBM customers. A huge threat to revenue is the only way to move IBM in the proper direction. But a big enough threat will not only get a swift and positive reaction from Big Blue, it will make things ultimately much better for customers, too.

So here is exactly what to do, down to the letter.  Print this out, if necessary, give it to your CEO or CIO and have them hand it personally to your IBM account rep. Give the IBM rep one business day to complete the work. They will fail. Then go ballistic, open up a can of whoop-ass, and point out that these requirements are all covered by your Service Level Agreement. Cancel the contract if you feel inclined.

LG will enter the cloud on Tuesday, debuting a new service aimed at sharing content across multiple devices. LG Cloud consists of apps for the Android and PCs, as well as LG's own line of smart televisions.

LG Cloud is part of a broader effort by the company to focus on both services and hardware. The offering will become part of a new LG division called the Smart Business Center, which is tasked with developing content and other services for its smart devices.

Third in a series. The current irrationality at IBM described in my two previous columns, here and here, is not new. Big Blue has been in crazy raptures before. One was the development of the System 360 in the 1960s when T.J. Watson Jr. bet the company and won big, though it took two tries and almost killed the outfit along the way. So there’s a legacy of heroic miracles at IBM, though it has been a long while since one really paid off.

There are those who would strongly disagree with this last statement. They’d say that with its strong financial performance IBM is right now in one of its greater moments. But haven’t we just spent 2000 words showing that’s not true? Successful companies aren’t heartsick and IBM today is exactly that, so the company is not a success.

Cloud was the big news this past week, and there were exciting developments in the world of online storage. After what seems like years of waiting, Google Drive 1.0 finally released, extending the idea of Docs and providing users with the opportunity to store any files they want online and keept them synched with their computers. There’s also a mobile version of the app available, Google Drive for Android 1.0.77, that enables access toyour files on the move.

Ubuntu One 2.0.3 has nothing whatsoever to do with the operating system of the same name, but provides you with 5GB of free space for storage and backups. Cloud storage stalwart Dropbox 1.4.0 has been updated and finally becomes stable, as well as adding batch uploading and importing of photos Meanwhile, Microsoft released Microsoft SkyDrive 2012 v16.4 and Microsoft SkyDrive 2.0 iOS with reduced storage levels.

Social networking news is not limited to the latest acquisitions by the likes of Facebook; LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, still generates headlines. The big news for iOS users: the app has moved to version 5.0 and heralds, amongst other things, the arrival of the universal version of the app; so with LinkedIn 5.0, iPad users finally get an app that enables them to tae advantage of their Retina display.

The iPhone version of the app had already come in for some praise, and the move to welcoming iPad owners to the folder looks set to head down the same path thanks to the great design that is prevalent through the interface. With tablet devices becoming increasingly common in the business world as tools of the trade, it’s good to see that apps are evolving to take this into account.

Hot on the heels of its new service allowing users to share files by hyperlink, Dropbox has unveiled Dropbox 1.40 for Windows, Mac and Linux. The new release extends the photo and video uploading tools pioneered in Dropbox for Android, plus allows batch uploading and downloading of files.

The new features were previously available to those running Dropbox Experimental Edition, the beta version for those happy to trade stability for a sneek peak at the latest features.

Suddenly mobile Twitter makes lots of sense to me, and I wonder what good the desktop or web clients are at all. Versions 3.2 and 4.2, available today for Android and iOS, respectively, improve discovery, search and, more importantly, interaction with others and topics that matter most to you.

Not that Twitter mobile was bad before, it's just whole lots better now -- and where you need it most. On the go. Most of the goodness is behind the Discover tab, which after being much of a wasteland before is now lively and filled with streaming content relevant to you.

Cash as a form of payment is rare these days as plastic takes over, and online it is all but nonexistent. Not anymore, though -- Walmart now allows online customers to pay for their orders with the good ol' Greenback.

Here's how it works: customers place their orders on the website, and select "Cash" as the payment option. They then have 48 hours to take a printed-out copy of the order form and pay at any local Walmart store. Walmart's demographics seem to support such an offering, so it is obvious why the retailer would offer cash as a form of payment.

VMware has confirmed that a portion the the source code for its ESX hypervisor was compromised, although the code dates back as early as 2003. That said, a fairly significant portion of the company's customers are still using the platform as VMware works to push them towards its newer hypervisor called ESXi.

A hypervisor in the simplest terms is a virtual machine management platform on which several virtual machines can run concurrently. The hypervisor controls the sharing of virtualized hardware resources. ESXi has a far smaller attack surface, which limits the available avenues of attack on a installation.

Popular social network Facebook has partnered with security vendors Symantec, McAfee, Microsoft, Sophos, and Trend Micro in a program to simultaneously improve Facebook's security and broaden the availability of the antivirus software from each of the partners.

Since 2008, Facebook has kept a URL blacklist, and any time a Facebook user posts a link to one of the blacklisted URL, Facebook pops up an interstitial warning page before the browser actually connects off to the suspicious destination. Facebook's parters in this effort included McAfee, Google, Web of Trust, and Websense.

Google on Tuesday finally rolled out the long-rumored Google Drive cloud storage platform to compete with the likes of Dropbox, Skydrive, Box, iCloud, and all the rest.

But let's put cloud storage competition aside for a moment. When Google Drive was announced, I was immediately reminded of a recent quote in the New York Times:

One of the most eagerly anticipated online storage services -- and one of the worst kept secrets in computing -- has finally seen the light of day. Google Drive has, at long last, been unveiled after years of rumors and speculation, working in much the same way as the likes of Dropbox and providing users with 5GB of cloud storage free of charge.

In many ways, the release of Google Drive can be seen as more of an update to Google Docs, and this is clear for Android users who will find that their Google Docs app will update and become Google Drive.

This just in from Microsoft: Windows 8 release candidate won't be the only one coming your way in less than six weeks. Expect Windows Server 2012, too. "The Windows 8 Release Preview will be publicly available in the first week of June 2012", Microsoft's Jeffrey Snover says. "We plan to deliver a release candidate of Windows Server 2012 in the same timeframe".

Windows & Windows Live President Steven Sinofsky revealed the June RC for the desktop operating system earlier today in Tokyo. Concurrent Windows Server 2012 release candidate isn't surprising given the operating systems share common code and development has tracked closely all along.

Microsoft on Monday launched a new version of SkyDrive, bringing the cloud-file sharing service to the desktop. This move did not come without a cost -- new users will have far less space, and current users only have a "limited time" to keep the generous storage the Redmond, Wash. company provides. But more on that a bit later.

The enhancements address problems with SkyDrive's browser-based interface which irk critics and customers. With desktop integration, cloud storage becomes a drag-and drop-process.

Indeed, these are the kinds of problems we would love to have, but when they actually occur we need solutions nonetheless. So, how do you handle the issues that occur when audience demand overwhelms the infrastructure you have provisioned to serve your content?

A few years ago, my company was approached by Latin Interactive Network (LIN), a publisher of online games across Latin America, including countries like Peru, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. LIN handles several successful MMOs in these territories, including the Spanish-language version of Audition Online, a unique free-to-play dance battle game. Audition is a big favorite, and in Latin America alone, the game is now played by half a million players per month. This is welcome news for LIN, of course, but not always so welcome for Audition gamers who may be stuck using outdated and underpowered infrastructure...