7 Experts Paint Enterprise IT Landscape for 2009 (E-Commerce Times). Welcome to the latest BriefingsDirect Analyst Insights Edition, Vol. 35, a periodic discussion and dissection of software, services, SOA and compute cloud-related news and events with a panel of IT analysts. In this episode, our guests make their top five predictions for IT in 2009.

Local auto sales remain steady despite nationwide hardships (The Atascocita Observer). The auto industry has taken several hits recently as a result of the recession. Ford, General Motors and Daimler Chrysler have been pleading with Congress and the president for money to sustain their operations. At the same time Toyota Motor Company announced losses for the first time in 70 years.

Fatal car crash man identified (BBC News). A teenager who died when the car he was travelling in hit a street sign in the West Midlands is identified.

Cops: Heart at Paw Paw car wash belonged to a deer (AP via Yahoo! News). Paw Paw's police chief said a heart found at a car wash in the southwestern Michigan village belonged to a deer. Investigators had been trying to determine the organ's origin since Dec. 15, when the owner of Soapy's Car Wash found it in the corner of a manual wash bay.

Banks’ ‘Catatonic Fear’ Means Consumers Don’t Get TARP Relief (Bloomberg via Yahoo! News). Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- As the new owner of $172.5 billion of preferred shares and warrants in 208 U.S. financial institutions, the Treasury Department hasn’t succeeded in thawing frozen credit markets, leaving taxpayers propping up an industry that won’t lend to them.