On the same day as reporting strong second-quarter results, virtualization software developer VMware said Monday that it has entered into an agreement to purchase network software Nicira for $1.05 billion. The company's software is used to manage network deployments and create virtualized network infrastructure. VMware expects the deal to close in the second half of the year.

"The acquisition of Nicira adds to our portfolio of networking assets and positions VMware to be the industry leader in software-defined networking", VMware CEO Paul Maritz says. Others called it a major move which positions VMware well in the fast-growing cloud computing sector.

For just about three years, we've had Microsoft's browser-based suite of free Office tools alongside the desktop Office software. In that time, we've composed and edited loads of Word documents, created Powerpoint presentations, and manipulated Excel spreadsheets. But when these types of Web apps debuted, there were three great islands: the standalone desktop software, the Web-based service, and the mobile application. Each was meant to be used in a different context, and each was equipped with different capabilities to suit those contexts.

For Microsoft in 2010, the PC was still the reigning king, so the Office Web apps were meant to get Office documents off the hard drive and out where they could be easily shared and passed between PCs.

EDF Energy, the official electricity supplier of the London 2012 Olympics, will be using tweets sent during the games to gage the “Energy of the Nation”.

The power company will scour the raw Twitter feed looking for content, hash tags and links that relate to the Olympics (and which originate from within the United Kingdom), which it will then analyze using an algorithm designed by Professor Mike Thelwall, from the University of Wolverhampton, and Sosolimited a team of linguistic and data visualization experts from MIT. This algorithm will extract positive and negative words, phrases and emoticons from the tweets and generate an hourly percentage showing how positive (or otherwise) British people are feeling about the games.

Demand ahead of the launch of Apple's iPhone 5 is "unprecedented", with a third of all potential smartphone buyers planning to purchase the device. The data comes courtesy of a new survey of 4,000 consumers carried out by research firm ChangeWave.

Fourteen percent of those polled say they are "very likely" to purchase an iPhone 5, with an additional 17 percent saying they are "somewhat likely" to do the same. Combined, that represents the highest number for those planning to purchase a new iPhone model.

When all is said and done, Apple’s pretty restrictive when it comes to playing media on your iOS device. Out of the box, only Apple’s own formats are supported, which is fine if you’re wedded to iTunes, but not so great if you have media in a variety of different formats.

You could manfully try converting them all using a tool like Handbrake, but if you want a quicker, fuss-free solution, then check out VLC Streamer Free instead.

Over the weekend, Google pulled one of two Nexus 7 models from the Play store, presumably because of demand. The tablet is sold out pretty much everywhere, and had long wait times (3 to 5 weeks) for delivery, so that's not unreasonable supposition. However, a groundswell of user complaints also burst forth over the weekend, and largely directed at the 16GB tablet -- the one Google suddenly stopped selling.

I honed in on the 16GB model after receiving email complaints, seeing others online but having absolutely no problems with the two Nexus 7s in my household. Both are 8GB models, which Google still sells and isn't the brunt-taker of end-user complaints. I got to wondering: Is it coincidence that Google stopped selling the model for which there are end-user complaints?

Going online means having to decide which web browser you’re going to use to find your way around the Internet. If security is your primary concern, a new browser just entered the arena and vies for attention. If Comodo IceDragon sounds familiar, you’ve probably been put in mind of Comodo Dragon, the security focused web browser based on Chromium. IceDragon is very much the same idea but this time around there is a Mozilla core.

Comodo have recognized that not everyone wants to use the same web browser just to get the benefits of added security, and Chrome is not a browser that suits everyone. The unveiling of a Mozilla based version of the same tool opens up a world of more secure web browsing to a wider audience. If you are already a Firefox user, you’ll be pleased to find that your bookmarks history, passwords and more can be imported into IceDragon.

Pundits can't seem to glow enough about Yahoo's new CEO, who has been on the job for less than a week. Marissa Mayer is a Google darling flown the coop and swooped in just as Yahoo shocked shareholders with another quarter of disappointing performance.

It's get to work time, and we've got a to-do list for Mayer -- eight things she should do as soon as humanly possible.

Samsung and Apple are two of the most popular smartphone and tablet manufacturers in the world right now and those top spots don’t come without responsibilities. But there's a disconnection somewhere in the corporate brains, with the companies seeing these responsibilities as green lights to be at each other’s throat in every major market over patents -- all that the cost of customer choice and satisfaction.

The latest round in the never-ending patent war between Samsung and Apple began today in Australia, where a local Judge started hearing evidence on their latest legal dispute. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple claims patent infringement. The two companies dispute whether the touchscreen technology used by Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 violates Apple owned patents. The South Korean manufacturer's counter-claim: Apple uses 3G patents without a license, which is supposed to be available on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

Paragon Software Group has released Partition Manager 12, the latest edition of its flagship partitioning tool. The program didn’t get much of a fanfare, perhaps because it’s mostly a maintenance release. Still, there are some worthwhile improvements, particularly if you have one of the commercial builds.

A new Split Partition Wizard allows you to split a single partition into two partitions of the same type, for instance, and choose exactly which files and folders you’d like on each. Which could be ideal if, say, you want to place your operating system and data on different partitions.

When it comes to subtly, Mission Control / Expose Clone will win no prizes for its name -- however, it may well impress in its ability to bring a great feature of OS X to Windows users. Ordinarily, Windows allows you to navigate between open windows and program using the task bar or by pressing the Win + Tab or Alt + Tab keyboard shortcuts. With Mission Control / Expose Clone installed, you can add Ctrl + Tab to your shortcut collection to access this great utility.

The program brings you some of the features of Exposé and Mission Control, enabling you to quickly access and overview of all running programs and open windows on a single desktop. Just as well your Alt + Tab between programs you can see a live preview of open windows, but things are kept beautifully neat thanks to the way the screen is arranged. Just like Mission Control, the program will automatically create stacks of windows from the same program -- so all of your Word documents are grouped together.

Picturethrill is the latest tool that promises to give your desktop more zing, and it’s a little different from most of the competition.

This starts with the simple, app-like interface. The program displays the thumbnails of the current image from each of its selected sites -- Bing, Nasa, National Geographic, Nature, Earth Science -- leaving you to choose your preferred source.

Dell must have read my story on “What will it take to make Linux popular?”, agreed with Linus Torvalds' initial thoughts, then thought that it might be a good idea to publicly announce “Project Sputnik”, which despite the name doesn’t have anything to do with spacecraft like Dell would want you to believe. (Okay, so the skunkworks project predates my story by six months, but surely official timing can't be a coincidence?)

What Project Sputnik does is bring “an official developer laptop based on the Dell XPS 13 with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS preloaded, available in select geographies”, meaning Linux for the people on the Dell XPS 13 in much simpler words. Dell is taking the project to the next level by officially releasing it this fall. Timing is interesting with Windows 8 launching October 26. Since the laptop comes with Linux, presumably it will cost less than its counterpart running Windows.

Microsoft released the preview version of Office 2013 less than a week ago. This new installment of the productivity suite has many of the same features as its previous versions, 2003, 2007, and 2010: Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Outlook. But there are other programs as well, and Microsoft has connected the Office Suite to the Azure Cloud.

In this review I’ll discuss the requirements for installation and the installation process. I’ll also discuss the contents of three of the Office 2013 suite programs, Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and how the cloud-based Office 365 may change the way many users work with the suite. I’ll also talk about Windows 8 integration, and wrap up with a discussion about the impact that Office 2013 can have in business enterprises.

This has been another action-packed week for software releases, but it is one dominated by one name -- Microsoft Office 2013 Consumer Preview. The latest version of Microsoft’s office suite has received a public preview, meaning that anyone keen to get a glimpse of the Windows 8-friendly, metro-interface suite can do so right now.

Olympic fever is starting to take hold and two new mobile apps BBC Olympics 1.0.0 (UK ONLY) and London 2012: Official Join In App for the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2.0 have been released to help you to keep up to date with the latest news and events, whether you are attending or not.