What better Valentine's Day gift could there be for a systems administrator than a bouquet of nine long-stemmed Microsoft security patches?

Telstra is moving BigPond customers onto a Windows Live email service while retaining their existing email addresses. Customers will also receive other Windows Live services.

F5 has added desktop virtualisation to the range of applications accelerated by its BIG-IP application delivery networking products.

Microsoft has appointed Laura Ipsen as corporate vice president of its worldwide public sector organisation.

Leading Australian managed services and cloud computing provider, Brennan IT, is bringing Microsoft Hyper-V to its cloud platform following the recent $1.5 million upgrade of its Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform as it gears up to meet what it says is rising demand for its cloud services.

The challenges which enterprises are facing in terms of managing ballooning end user data stores, and information stored on virtual servers or in clouds, has prompted CommVault to update its Simpana suite of information management tools, bringing forward the release of some functions originally slated for inclusion in Simpana 10 which isn’t expected to be released before 2013.

Although they should have launched in Australia last year, Nokia’s Windows Phone 7.5-powered Lumias are finally coming in around 8 weeks time, although with that timeframe due to see the iPad 3 arrive, along with the later arrival of Galaxy S III’s and iPhone 5’s… does Nokia stand a chance down under?

VMware has got a tick of approval from one market analyst for its fourth quarter financial performance last year and the take-up of its core product offerings, including cloud-based products and services, but its also predicted that the company wil face increasing competition for marketshare from IBM and Microsoft.

Global shipments of ultrabooks are predicted to grow at three times the rate of tablets over the next five years, but despite the strong growth, tablet volumes will remain higher with a forecast of 253 million to be shipped in 2016 compared with 178 million ultrabooks.

Android has replaced Apple’s iOS in terms of importance to developers in the Asia-Pacific region in the last 12 months, according to a newly published analyst report, although there’s growing interest from developers in Microsoft’s Windows phone.