A Veterans Affairs decision to pursue a new direction in processing health records has created a highly visible endorsement of the use of COTS information technology by federal agencies. President Trump cited the VA's action as an example of the administration's commitment to vastly improve federal IT management. The sheer size of the VA makes the decision to use an outside contractor noteworthy.

GitHub has launched GitHub Marketplace, featuring apps from more than a dozen integrators. The platform allows developers to review and purchase new tools that do everything from helping to manage projects, to automating code building, testing code quality, or monitoring the impact of code changes. It allows devs to start using tools without setting up multiple accounts or payment methods.

Red Hat on Tuesday announced the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.4 beta. RHEL 7.4 includes new security and compliance features and streamlined automation, along with tools for improved systems administration. This latest upgrade comes nearly three years into the series 7 lifecycle. It continues to provide enterprises with a rich and stable foundation.

Crate.io on Tuesday announced an upgrade to its open source CrateDB, and introduced a commercial version. The database now is available as a managed service as well. CrateDB 2.0 features clustering enhancements and SQL improvements. The enterprise edition adds authentication and authorization features for enhanced security, which are not provided in the open source version.

In the cloud, showcasing the partner ecosystem in an online marketplace has become an imperative. Salesforce has been in the vanguard of this trend. Since its inception in 2005, the AppExchange has grown to include more than 3,000 partner solutions that augment Salesforce's growing portfolio of cloud services. AppExchange has strengthened significantly Salesforce's position in the marketplace.

Black Duck Software has released its 2017 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis, detailing significant cross-industry risks related to open source vulnerabilities and license compliance challenges. Black Duck conducted audits of more than 1,071 open source applications for the study. There are widespread weaknesses in addressing open source security vulnerability risks across key industries.

Kingsoft had announced an expansion to its WPS Office suite to include WPS Cloud. The upgrade enables users to work in a cross-platform office suite environment with added storage, file roaming and sharing capabilities. The cloud-enhanced version is available for PCs and mobile as a fully functional free release and with premium subscriptions. It runs on Linux, Windows, Mac and Android devices.

In a move that caps off its gradual embrace of open source in a bear hug, Microsoft last week announced that it would shutter its nearly 11-year-old CodePlex project site and migrate its library of work to GitHub. The company has been forced to deal with a couple of major issues, such as a 2015 spam epidemic and a substantial decrease in usage, which in part prompted the move.

The Cloud Foundry Foundation has announced the launch of a worldwide cloud-native developer certification initiative. The foundation created the program to fill the widening gap of trained programmers for cloud apps and services. The Linux Foundation -- which has trained and certified more developers on open source software than any organization in the world -- will provide the instruction.

Salesforce this week announced new features and an expanded partner ecosystem for its Health Cloud at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference. The new features are lead-to-patient conversion, risk stratification and advanced segmentation. Salesforce also announced a slew of new partner-developed applications for Health Cloud available on the Salesforce AppExchange.

The Lumina Desktop Environment desktop is a standout in the crowded field of Linux GUIs. Lumina is a compact, lightweight, XDG-compliant graphical desktop environment developed from scratch. Its focus is on giving users a streamlined, efficient work environment with minimal system overhead. Lumina was first developed for the BSD family of operating systems, such as FreeBSD and TrueOS.

Cybersecurity startup Capsule8 this week announced that it has raised $2.5 million to launch the industry's first container-aware, real-time threat protection platform designed to protect legacy and next-generation Linux infrastructures from existing and potential attacks. CEO John Viega, CTO Dino Dai Zovi and Chief Scientist Brandon Edwards, all veteran hackers, cofounded the firm.

Salesforce has announced new integrations for Quip, the collaboration startup it acquired last summer for $582 million. Quip, which operates independently, also added new capabilities to its product's existing feature set, which includes smart notifications, chat built into every document and spreadsheet, and a smart inbox. Quip lets users direct-message group members.

SnapRoute, a developer of open source networking software, announced that it has raised $25 million in Series A financing led by Norwest Venture Partners with new support from AT&T and Microsoft Ventures. SnapRoute, founded by CEO Jason Forrester and other former Apple engineers, plans to use the funding to speed up the development of open source networking software for Fortune 500 firms.

Wine developers have announced the release of stable version Wine 2.0. The release brings many fixes and some new functionality, along with a major change in future release schedules. The devs have tweaked Wine's ability to run Windows programs within the Linux operating system in this release, which is the culmination of more than a year of effort. It includes some 6,600 individual changes.

Red Hat has announced the general availability of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 3.4. This latest version helps organizations better embrace new Linux container technologies that can deliver innovative business applications and services without sacrificing existing IT investments. It offers dynamic storage provisioning and multitenancy for both traditional and cloud-native applications.

Atlassian, the parent company behind the Jira enterprise tracking and HipChat communication apps, on Monday announced a deal to acquire Trello, the developer of a cloud-based collaboration app for enterprise teams and personal use. Atlassian will fork over $425 million-- $360 million in cash and the rest in stock. Trello provides software that includes digital whiteboards and virtual sticky notes.

Caught off guard by a huge backlash, Evernote recently abandoned its plan to let staffers read customer notes under certain circumstances. The plan would have allowed staffers to review private customer notes as a means of assessing the accuracy of its new machine learning technology. The company made a mistake in judgment, Evernote CEO Chris O'Neil acknowledged.

Crate.io has announced the general availability of the first non-beta release of CrateDB 1.0, an open source SQL database that enables real-time analytics for machine data applications. CrateDB is an SQL database alternative to NOSQL machine data management solutions. It gives mainstream SQL developers access to machine data applications that previously were available only using NoSQL solutions.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced the compatibility of Windows 10 and native Windows apps with ARM-based processors, including Qualcomm's Snapdragon, which currently powers a large percentage of Android devices. The new partnership will make it possible for Windows applications, peripherals and enterprise solutions to run on new mobile, power efficient and always-connected cellular PCs.

Microsoft has launched Teams, a new collaboration offering designed to fend off Office 365 competitors. The new chat-based workspace product brings together people, conversations and content, along with some familiar productivity tools, to facilitate collaboration on projects. "With Microsoft Teams, we aspire to create a more open, digital environment," noted Microsoft VP Kirk Koenigsbauer.

Microsoft last week unveiled its new vision for bringing 3D to the masses through a modernized version of its Paint application for Windows 10. Paint 3D will be available in the Windows 10 Creators Update. Anyone who would like to start creating and sharing in Paint 3D can do so by joining the Windows Insider Program -- available for PC and Phone -- the company said.

Microsoft last week shared new information about its upcoming Dynamics 365 cloud service: the addition of 100 new apps; the inclusion of Solution Integrator partners in Appsource; the division of apps and features into Enterprise and Business Editions, the latter for SMBs; and a new subscription model. Many of the new capabilities will be available in both editions on Nov. 1.

Google last week unveiled new capabilities across its G Suite, formerly known as "Apps for Work." The company added some new apps infused with artificial intelligence to the mix. Quick Access in Google Drive on Android, for example, makes the files most relevant to a user's work accessible when Drive is opened. It cuts the time spent finding a file by about half.

GE and Bosch Software Innovations have partnered to jump-start the development of an open source Internet of Things platform. Open source will encourage greater interoperability and application development, the companies said. Both firms have sought help from the Eclipse Foundation to speed up the process. The companies will create a core IoT stack comprised of open source software.

Microsoft has announced a series of major enhancements to its enterprise cloud platform, as well as a new strategic partnership with Adobe, advancing its drive to attract new business from core competitors like Salesforce and Amazon. Microsoft has entered a strategic partnership to make Azure the preferred cloud platform for the Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Document Cloud.

Technology vendors that support the different missions of U.S. government agencies may have a major opportunity to provide innovative IT assistance for a task that is common to all: preparing the payroll for 2.3 million federal workers. The GSA and the OPM have been sifting through responses from IT vendors on a joint RFI on significantly upgrading federal payroll processing.

What's the direction of the software industry? I'm not indulging in idle curiosity -- things are changing, and today's events are signaling a significant shift. The rollout of Software as a Service and the emergence of relatively good platforms -- which will only get better -- suggest to me that the software industry of 2000, in which cloud and SaaS began to emerge, is now well in the past.

Facebook last week launched its Incubator on GitHub in order to distribute its own open source software projects. Facebook has open sourced almost 400 projects to date. New projects will be posted on Incubator pages to gauge community reaction and rate of adoption. Facebook plans to use in-house and actively develop all projects posted on the Incubator page.

"Patch your systems in a timely manner" is a mantra of security experts, but what happens when the patch well runs dry because a product's maker no longer supports it? That is a situation facing many large enterprises, and it's one that poses security risks. Between 30 percent and 50 percent of the hardware and software assets in the average large enterprise have reached their end-of-life date.