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Over a quarter (28 percent) of IT executives surveyed are planning to deploy private cloud in 2009, according to a survey of delegates by Platform Computing at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC'09) in June 2009. This planned adoption of private cloud within High Performance Computing (HPC) is being driven by the increased workload demand of applications and the need for IT to cut costs at the same time. As the leader in grid and cloud computing software, Platform Computing has been tracking adoption of private clouds and this level of intent to deploy reflects steadily changing attitudes in IT departments.

Online advertised vacancies inched up by 700 to 3,295,500 in July, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series (HWOL)™ released today. Nationally, online job demand has been relatively flat over the last several months after sharp declines in December 2008 and January 2009. Nationally, there were over four unemployed looking for work for every online advertised vacancy, as the number of unemployed increased even as the number of advertised vacancies held steady.

Global public relations leader Porter Novelli today released "The Future of News," an in-depth exploration of how citizen journalism, empowered and emboldened by social media and the Internet, is changing the future of traditional news. The report, the latest in the agency's acclaimed Intelligent Dialogue series, offers one of the most comprehensive and in-depth analyses to date of how social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and blogging are impacting the role and even the very definition of news in modern society.

On 1 January 2009, the population of the EU27 was estimated at 499.8 million, compared with 497.7 million on 1 January 2008. The population of the EU27 grew by 2.1 million in 2008, an annual rate of +0.4%, due to a natural increase of 0.6 million and net migration of 1.5 million.

More than 58 percent of small business owners expect an economic turnaround in 2010, while 14 percent anticipate a rebound by the end of 2009 and 14 percent think the recovery will be in 2011 or later, according to the most recent Business Confidence Survey released today by Administaff (NYSE:ASF), a leading provider of human resource services for small and medium-sized businesses.

Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index: Score Drops 20 Points; Credit Availability and Cash Flow Also Among Contributing Factors

Small business owners’ optimism recently dropped to its lowest level in the six years of the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index history. Covering a survey period July 7 – July 14, 2009, the score now stands at negative 21 (-21), down 20 points from the previous survey (April, 2009), and 135 points lower than the Index high of 114 (November, 2006). This is the third consecutive quarter with a negative (below zero) Index score. A score of zero indicates that small business owners, as a group, are neutral -- neither optimistic nor pessimistic -- about their companies’ situations.

EMPLOYMENT COST INDEX - JUNE 2009

Compensation costs for civilian workers increased 0.4 percent, seasonally adjusted, for the 3-month period ending June 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Wages and salaries--which make up about 70 percent of compensation--also increased 0.4 percent for the 3-month period ending June 2009. Benefit costs--which make up the remaining 30 percent of compensation--increased 0.3 percent.

In June 2009 all the average MFI interest rates on new deposits and most average MFI interest rates on new loans further decreased. Most average MFI interest rates on outstanding amounts of deposits and loans decreased.

PriceGrabber.com , a part of Experian, explores the impact of the economy on online consumer behavior in its latest Consumer Behavior Report, Economic Trends in Consumer Spending. Results are based on a survey of 3,156 online consumers conducted over the past two months. Survey data revealed that most consumers are cutting back as a result of the economy and that the economy has affected men and women differently.

Your age may determine how much insurance companies spend trying to get you onboard. New research from Mintel Comperemedia, a service that provides direct marketing competitive intelligence, shows health and life insurers pay much more attention to Baby Boomers than they do to Generation X and Generation Y.