Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer again voiced support for purchasing Yahoo or its search business, hinting in a published report that a deal between the two companies may be reached before the end of the year.

[ For the complete saga of Microsoft's attempted takeover of Yahoo, check out InfoWorld's special report ]

"I think good ideas are usually better done quickly than slowly, so it would probably be better for both us, and certainly for Yahoo, if we were to do it sooner than later," he said.

When Microsoft issued an emergency patch for a critical Windows bug six weeks ago, it warned that attacks were in progress and told users to patch immediately.

[ Related: Check out Microsoft's plans to fix eight bugs in the year's final Patch Tuesday.

Seattle-based start-up ExtraHop Networks next week will unveil its flagship appliance that 10 beta customers put in place earlier this year to more quickly identify application performance problems across sophisticated, distributed networks.

The problem isn't new. Poor application performance challenges network teams to find the root cause of the slowdown before being able to fix the issue.

IT vendors may be growing increasingly desperate amid the global economic downturn, but customers must employ a range of tactics — not just bullying — to extract cost savings from them, a group of Forrester Research analysts said during a client teleconference Wednesday.

VMware has introduced View 3, the updated version of its virtual data infrastructure (VDI) offering. The company claimed that the new product would reduce desktop storage demands by as much as 70 percent.

[ Read about VMware's VDI Storage Considerations guide.

Dell believes that customers do not necessarily need to build new datacenters, and is now offering to show customers how to optimize their existing ones to extend their life span.

Server shipments grew in the third quarter this year, though server revenue declined as companies lowered spending to meet budgetary constraints, according to a study released by Gartner on Monday.