Daily Cuppa: Gartner's Windows 8 blast

Good morning. Sit back and relax as we get you up to speed with what happened overnight.

VMware splashed out and bought Nicira for US$1.05 billion. Nicira specialises in open-source software for network virtualisation, flagging VMware's ambitions to virtualise networking.

Gartner caused great debate as it said that while Microsoft's Windows 8 concept works well on tablets and for consumers, for enterprise desktops, it is, "in a word: bad".

Of course, not everyone is drinking that Kool-Aid. Ed Bott took the chance to look back at some of Gartner's misses over the years. Larry Dignan says that although enterprises might not jump on Windows 8, they could well adopt Windows 9 or 10 — it will just take time.

Meanwhile, Mary Jo Foley kept us up to date on new features in Microsoft's Lync Server 2013.

Cisco is cutting 2 per cent of its global workforce, with restructures to "simplify" the company and respond to economic conditions around the world.

Former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, who left after it was revealed that his resumé had listed a degree he didn't possess, has now nabbed a position as the CEO of ShopRunner, a service that aims to allow retailers to better compete with Amazon Prime. Some might argue that this business has more potential for Thompson than Yahoo ever did. Only time will tell.

Privacy International is threatening the British Government with legal action for not banning the sale of surveillance technology to despotic regimes. It has sent a list of questions to the British Government, giving it 14 days to answer.

A hacker thinks he's broken UK supermarket Tesco's barcode cipher, which should allow him to buy products at a severe discount. We're still waiting to find out whether it works.

And if you're going to London for the Olympics, here's an app round-up to help you along.