Clarizen for Outlook … Clarizen released its Outlook add-in, enabling richer integration between its online project management service and Outlook. “Clarizen add-in for Outlook helps you keep track of your action items. After a simple installation, you can start creating, scheduling, sending and receiving action items for your team directly from email. Clarizen will keep track of your action items until they are completed.” More

Email is Distractive … New research from Loughsborough University showed that recovering attention and focus after reading an email message takes about a minute. More

IBM in the Cloud … IBM increased its push into cloud computing. “IBM has a four-pronged strategy to capture the cloud computing opportunity by: 1) delivering its own cloud services portfolio; 2) helping ISVs design, build, deliver and market cloud services; 3) helping clients integrate cloud services into their business; and 4) providing cloud computing environments to businesses.” More

Seamless UC … CIOs are exploring how to seamlessly integrate various systems for complete fluidity of communication across different devices. More

Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 … Mozilla Messaging released Alpha 3 of Thunderbird 3.0, the open source email client. “The most significant changes in alpha 3 are various performance and usability improvements. The IMAP implementation got a boost in this release, and provides better support for offline usage. The new message view includes some contextually-relevant controls, such as buttons to reply, forward, and delete a message. Small star icons displayed next to the individual e-mail addresses in message headers can be used to quickly add contacts to the addressbook.” Integration with the Lightning Calendar product is planned. More

Wait for Windows 7 … Steve Ballmer of Microsoft told enterprise customers at the Gartner conference that it was okay to skip Vista and wait for Windows 7. More