Security: Writing secure ActiveX controls is more art than science. In fact, “to succeed a developer has to look beyond intended purposes of the interfaces, to other purposes for which they might be used,” Martin Heller explains. To that end, Mr. Heller shares three safeguards for secure ActiveX controls, beginning with “be noisy about what you’re doing.” I’ll not spoil the fun by giving away the others. Related: Security pros say kill ActiveX, and Attackers zero in on Yahoo Jukebox’s ActiveX flaw. M&A’s: It’s a simple math equation, really: Microsoft + Yahoo = Antitrust bait? The only thing is, it might be hard to get anyone to listen, what with Google’s pole position in search and all. “Is Google happy about this? Not quite,” explains Peter Bruzzese. “Isn’t that the point? A little healthy competition (or unhealthy competition) never hurt anyone.” Notes from the field: Cringely is making noise about the noise that G-man Eric Schmidt has been making since Microsoft proposed to Yahoo. “I don’t think anything Google does will sway regulators or Yahoo’s investors, who can recognize a sinking ship when they see one. When you’re going down for the third time, even a garbage scow looks like the Queen Mary. Or maybe just the Titanic. I’m not alone in thinking MicroHoo is heading for an iceberg,” Cringe asserts in What’s worse, MicroHoo or YaGoogle? This will prove to be “a good time to be a Microsoft competitor, and an even worse than usual time to be a Microsoft customer.” The news beat: Adobe fixes undisclosed flaws in Reader without detailing the vulnerabilities, leading one security vendor to speculate that they’re serious enough to compromise PCs. India emerges as the fastest growing market for SAP, in which it has doubled its customers there in the last year. And IBM fuels its Information on Demand strategy. Software Development