Careers: Overloaded with work, impossible assignments, trips to the hospital with heart attack-like symptoms? If you have trouble saying “no,” Bob Lewis offers some advice. “Among combat troops it’s understood that some missions are going to be very risky,” he writes in Advice Line. “It’s rare that a business project could have the same level of impact.” Special report: Every year, InfoWorld honors senior IT executives. Today, we reveal the first five winners, including Antonio Nucci, the chief technologist of Narus. “Comparing Nucci to your average CTO is like comparing Tiger Woods to your average duffer,” begins Dan Tynan in Nucci’s profile. 2007 InfoWorld CTO 25 awards. Security: Microsoft, at its TechEd 2007 show, details an integrated security strategy under which the company is to release a suite code-named Stirling. The package will include several Microsoft products, and compete against similar offerings from the likes of McAfee and Symantec when it becomes available in the middle of 2009. The news beat: Microsoft signs an open source pact with Xandros, and not unlike the deal it penned with Novell this one is sure to raise a few eyebrows. Struggling Palm gets some help from Elevation Partners — yes, the firm that lists Bono as partner — to the tune of $325 million, for which the handheld maker abdicates a 25 percent stake. Apple confirms a June 29th launch date for the iPhone. Sun unveils compiler and tool technologies to leverage multicore processors and extend to Linux. And EMC buys Verid for its ‘knowledge-based authentication’ technologies. Careers