Quoteworthy: “To answer the naysayers of negativism, I’d like to quote Sen. Sam Ervin of the Watergate hearings: ‘Any jackass can knock down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.’ Writing secure software, especially on a large scale, is a much harder problem than finding individual bugs.” — David LeBlanc speaking with Roger Grimes in Security Adviser. Columnists’ Corner: Is information technology change good? Luddites historically would answer in the negative, but not David Margulius. He peers under the hood of two analyst reports suggesting that forces of so-called forward motion are not always for the best, and that “knowledge workers can be their own worst enemy.” Then again, an occasional break from the burden of technology isn’t so bad either, Margulius opines. The news beat: Dell bids adieu to Itanium but Intel uses the farewell to proclaim that it was not a big Itanium customer anyway. Intel also announced that it is investing $345 million in two U.S. chip factories. A USB phone for users of Skype’s VoIP services sells out in a mere 50 hours. China: IBM and partner Red Hat join to target Linux toward emerging markets, such as China, India and Russia. Sybase also is priming China as its largest market for new customers. TSMC, however, says it is not investing in Chinese chip designers. Notes from the field: In this week’s installment, Microsoft rebuffed, Oracle gets stuffed, the incorrigible Robert X. Cringely continues searching for any monastery that will take him in along with his dog, and offers Wi-Fi. The Cathedral and the Bazaar author is a Cringely subject after he received the now infamous form letter from a Microsoft recruiter who, clearly, had no idea what he was getting himself into when he typed the name Eric Raymond into the recipient field and clicked ‘send.’ So, too, does Larry Ellison make a cameo in the column, even though Microsoft has not tried to recruit him — yet. Technology Industry