From the analysts: Amid all the rhetoric and emotion, very little fact has emerged about outsourcing. A new report from the Association for Computing Machinery, however, changes that, explains David Margulius in Experts offer fresh perspective on offshoring IT. This “truly great desert island reading,” provides a “snapshot of globalization is really working from a non-U.S.-centric perspective.” The report emphasizes the importance of strengthening education, technical training, and R&D investment, while cutting away regulatory barriers to the free flow of talent. Is there an echo coming from the corner offices of IT’s biggest companies? Best of the blogs: Google confirms that it bought Writely for its word processor and that a Google calendar is in the works, which makes Mike Barton think that perhaps Google Office can’t be far behind. Matt Asay, meanwhile, looks at the reasons why SCO’s revenue slides, while Novell’s Linux revenue jumps. Storage: Mario Apicella asks Think you have backup problems? Apicella recounts the horror that one of our readers is having and offers links to help you learn about new backup solutions on the market. And Oliver Rist takes a look at the new laptop data protection service from Everdream. “The neat part is where it lets them wipe the machine of all data should you pull the trigger,” Rist explains. The news beat: Seagate partners with Secude to bring full encryption of hard drives and software for easier password management to notebook computers. F-Secure launches an e-mail security appliance. And China sets broad tech goals for 2006 and beyond. Technology Industry