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IBM announced today a set of cloud services that will allow developers to develop and test cloud applications. In addition, IBM is offering free compute and storage for developers using the IBM platform.

Second Life is introducing a behind the firewall service for enterprise customers, another sign that the very definition of collaboration is changing as more companies seek ways to do their work in virtual environments.

In addition, Second Life will unveil a marketplace in the first quarter of 2010 where people may purchase templates and other 3D environments for their Second Life Enterprise world.

Is Enterprise 2.0 a crock? Where are the use cases? Seven enterprise managers spoke about five principles that are emerging around this topic at the Enterprise 2.0 conference today in San Francisco.

Yammer came to the market with one of the first microblogging services. In the span of their existence, a number of companies launched their own versions of an activity stream. But Yammer looks like they have the customers to prove they have a hold on their sector of the market.

At the Enterprise 2.0 conference Andrew McAfee made a few points about the approach to enterprise technology and how it might be changed a bit.

McAffee, of the Center for Digital Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, is considered the father of Enterprise 2.0. His views reflect how Enterprise 2.0 is evolving but still with a fair degree of resistance for its adoption.

In the Web 2.0 heyday, Netvibes had that star appeal that few companies ever experience. Their platform for creating personal dashboards rocketed in growth. Web innovators sang its praises. But you know the story. Netvibes struggled to find a business model.

The real-time web is proving itself disruptive in the enterprise space. But it's not viable unless users may utilize technologies like live editing or voice collaboration on top of a real-time environment.

At the Enterprise 2.0 conference over the next few days we will be watching companies that give users the ability to integrate voice and other technologies with intuitive, real-time capabilities.

The French Government's public finance department will switch 130,000 desktop PC's to Mozilla's email and calendar applications. Mozilla's Thunderbird email service, Lightning Calendar and an open-source groupware will replace IBM Lotus Notes and Microsoft Office.

The move signals how more government agencies from around the world are dropping enterprise accounts with major vendors to cut down on costs and get better license agreements.They are turning to open-source providers and companies like Google that can offer email and services such as Google Docs.

An all-star team is forming at StatusNet, the open microblogging service for businesses and communities. The newest addition is Jon Phillips, former community and business development manager for Creative Commons.

Phillips joins Brion Vibber, who came from the Wikimedia Foundation where he served as chief technology officer.

Several months ago, the federal government drafted definitions for cloud computing. It was generally recognized as doing some excellent work.

The definitions are a work in progress. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) last updated the definitions on October 7. The latest version is available for download. It's free.