Apple last week posted a warning on its developer web site that will won’t stand for iPhone apps intended to provide location-based advertising.

“If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store,” the posting says.

What about people who might want such offers?  Some great location-based apps are available for the iPhone. I use one called AroundMe that’ll give me a list of nearby restaurants, gas stations, hotels, movie theatres and lots more.  If I click on restaurants, I’m probably looking for a place to eat and there’s a decent chance I haven’t already decided on one. A nicely targeted offer of a discount could well sway my decision – and I’d likely welcome it, frugal sort that I am. And if I take it upon myself to download an app knowing full well it comes with location-based ads, then what’s the harm?

I hope for the sake of GPS-aware marketers and discount-hunters alike that Apple soon changes its tune on this decision.

Penton Media has filed for Chapter 11, but it seems like a kinder, gentler bankruptcy to me.  When I picture a company filing for bankruptcy, I envision people hanging their heads in shame, massive layoffs, huge budget cuts and no more K-cups in the kitchen.

None of that appears to be happening at Penton. Rather, according to the company’s press release, the restructuring “will result in the elimination of $270 million of the Company’s debt.” How do I get in on that kind of deal? It reminds me of an episode of “The Office,” where the boss, Michael Scott, thinks that merely shouting the words “I declare bankruptcy,” would make all of his debt go away. Not too far from the truth, apparently.

But there’s more: “Further, there will be no management changes or change in control of the Company.  ‘Operationally, nothing will change during this debt restructuring,’” according to Sharon Rowlands, Penton’s CEO.

I know times are tough in publishing and probably the Penton management team includes some talented, upstanding folks. But if a company manages to mount $270 million in debt, enough to force it into bankruptcy, shouldn’t some changes be made?

I’ve been helping Network World line up speakers to present end user case studies at its IT Roadmap events for more than four years now.  IT Roadmap is a one-day event held in 10 U.S. cities that covers multiple technologies in separate breakout sessions and workshops. (Learn more here.)

In the course of finding folks who can present on the various topics covered at the events, I talk to lots and lots of practicing IT professionals.  I mean lots.  I talk to them about what projects they’ve implemented lately and how the projects went, to get a sense for the topics they’d be able to talk about at an IT Roadmap event.

Consistently, the topic I have the most trouble finding folks to speak about is network management. This is a topic that I’ve followed to varying extents for about 20 years, dating back to when it was part of my beat as a Network World reporter in the late 1980’s and early ‘90s.  Back then, the big topic was being able to remotely monitor and control various pieces of network and computing equipment from a central console – a la HP OpenView or CA NSM.

It strikes me that things haven’t changed all that much. The products are out there, to be sure, but an awful lot of folks haven’t implemented them. The reasons they cite most often are purely budgetary – they just don’t have the money.  As a result, many favor open source products that they acknowledge are somewhat less functional – but it’s hard to beat the price.

I suspect many of these folks are going to run into trouble as they look to take advantage of technologies including virtualization and cloud computing. Every time a new technology comes down the pike, it brings with it its own set of management challenges.

Virtualization and cloud are no different. Just consider the challenges inherent in managing applications that may be running on multiple servers at the same time, of multiple operating environments on the same piece of hardware and of virtual servers that may move from one physical environment to another.

If you’re in an IT shop that isn’t quite up to snuff on the network and systems management front in the first place, then you want to implement virtualization and/or cloud computing, you’re going to be that much more behind.

Of course from a marketer’s perspective, that should be a great opportunity – virtualization is all the rage and there’s a strong case to be made that IT shops can only get the most out of it if they have proper management tools.