5 Vendors That Dropped The Ball This Week

AT&T Receives Security 101 Crash Course

AT&T's image was tarnished even further this week when hackers exploited a flaw in an AT&T Web application and published over 114,000 e-mail addresses of iPad 3G customers. Security experts said the attack was fairly simple and stemmed from a poorly designed AT&T Web application.

In addition to the embarrassment of having the e-mail addresses of its high profile iPad customers made public (and an FBI probe into the matter), AT&T may also have to deal with the wrath of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who can't be happy about this latest example of the exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The latest rumors have T-Mobile getting the iPhone even before Verizon does, and you'd have to think that eventually, one of these rumors is going to end up being true.

Google Gets Caught Copying Bing

Bing isn't much more than a speck on the windshield for Google in search, but for some reason Google decided it would be a good idea to allow users to alter its classic minimalist homepage design with colorful photos. Of course, Microsoft jumped at the chance to depict Google as a copycat, and sarcastic chortling could be heard emanating from the Redmond mothership. For a company that pays so much attention to what Microsoft is doing, you'd think Google would have realized that if people wanted pretty photos, they'd go to the National Geographic Web site.

Sprint Gets Carried Away With Evo 4G Sales Estimate

Sprint this week wiped some egg from its face when it mistakenly claimed that the Evo 4G smartphone sold more in its first day on the market than the Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre -- the carrier's previous top selling devices -- did in their first three days combined.

By way of clarification, Sprint subsequently issued the following statement: "The total number of HTC EVO 4G devices sold on launch day was in line with the number of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold over the first three days on the market combined."

Easy there, Sprint, don't get too worked up. You've got a solid iPhone challenger in the Evo 4G, but Apple just launched the latest Jesus phone. For now, you should focus on how your network is faster than AT&T's overloaded one. Baby steps.

Bankrupt SCO Denied A New Trial

SCO's campaign to establish ownership over Unix copyrights may be nearing an end after a judge this week denied the company's request for a new trial. The judge upheld an April court ruling in favor of Novell in the two companies' long running legal battle, which means SCO can't proceed with its 2003 lawsuit against IBM. SCO filed for bankruptcy in 2007 and may be out of options in what has been one of the bitterest patent feuds in IT industry history.

Dell's Possible $100 Million Misstep

Dell this week has reportedly been working with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle an investigation into CEO Michael Dell's business relationship with Intel. The PC maker is also reportedly ready to pay $100 million to settle this case and an earlier SEC investigation of its accounting practices. That's a drop in the bucket for Dell, and any settlement would probably mask the truth behind the allegations, but this definitely isn't the sort of publicity that's going to change solution providers' perception of Dell.

Check out our roundup of vendors that came to win this week for a look at the companies that really brought their 'A' game.