Top 10 Valentine's Day technology matches made in heaven
Who's pushing each other's buttons in the steamy world of IT
Next Tuesday will see the world engage in an orgy of romantic gift-giving and doe-eyed infatuation as loved-up couples make a great display of their mutual tolerance and singleton's attempt to catch the apple of their eye with a cheap high-street greeting card.
V3 has always been a romantic soul so couldn't help but cast its eye over the technology world to do a bit of match-making and suggest some potential dates, or celebrate those already deeply in love.
The course of true love never does run smoothly, but we think we've managed to identify a few matches that could certainly get some hard drives whirring.
10. Microsoft and Nokia's marriage of convenience
While Microsoft may have flirted with HTC and Samsung by letting them have a play with its Windows Phone operating system, it was clear those in Redmond only had eyes for their Nordic counterparts in Finland.
In some ways though, it was a marriage of convenience as both firms had left it rather late to pick their partners for the smartphone ball. Most handset manufacturers were already battling it out to be the one true love of the Android platform.
Still, while Nokia and Microsoft may have been forced into each other's arms, the early signs are good. The operating system seems well-loved by users, Nokia is ramping up its shipments, and the Android love-in is starting to get a little fractious after Google finally fell for Motorola's patent charms.
Top 10 Valentine's Day technology matches made in heaven
Who's pushing each other's buttons in the steamy world of IT
9. RIM and Dell should accept their fate
There comes a point at the end of any boozy wedding where all the stunning singleton's have paired off, leaving only a few mingers trying to establish which potential conquest might look least bad in the cold light of day. So it is with Dell and Research in Motion (RIM).
They might not have felt the blood-quickening rush of love-at-first-sight, but they have to accept they need someone - and no one else is going to have them.
Dell - the one-time king of the PC - is nowhere in mobile. Mobile email pioneer RIM once had the playing field all to itself; now it's becoming a smartphone also ran.
But together there's a chance these two old lags could produce something, if not beautiful, at least not stomach-churning.
RIM has an army of loyal users, and while its initial crack at the tablet market fell flat, there's still room in the market for a properly-considered business tablet. And Dell still has significant clout in the enterprise - the market that offers both firms the best opportunities in the future.
By buying RIM, Dell could forget its ill-conceived plan to ape IBM by branching in to software and services, and instead return to its roots by developing neatly crafted products aimed at business users.
So time to strap on the beer goggles Dell, and dive in before the last dance is over.
8. Intel and AMD - how to avoid a break-up
The two biggest x86 processor makers have enjoyed a stormy relationship for the best part of three decades, with Intel fretting that AMD is eating its lunch, while the latter has cried foul many times over allegations of unfair competition.
It all started with AMD getting a second source licence to meet demand for Intel chips. AMD has since used this licence to develop its own x86 chips to compete against Intel, causing the chip giant to act like a woman scorned.
But without competition from AMD, Intel would have even more of a monopoly of the chip market and would almost certainly face some kind of anti-trust action in the US, which could result in the forced break-up of the firm, as happened with AT&T in the 1970s.
Moreover, Intel probably wouldn't have been spurred into developing the Core architecture if it wasn't for competition from AMD's Opteron chips.
Top 10 Valentine's Day technology matches made in heaven
Who's pushing each other's buttons in the steamy world of IT
7. Apple and itself - why settle for anyone else?
While the rest of the technology world runs around trying to impress each other and form little cliques to develop new products, Apple spends its time alone, staring into the mirror, reminding itself just how beautiful it is.
Why get involved with someone else when everything you do is so beautiful, so luxurious, so sexy? Better to be a rock and remain steadfastly independent than open your heart to the whims and random demands of tempestuous suitors.
In fact, Apple is so proud of its stunning looks and beautiful outfits that it regularly attempts to stop what it sees as copycats from mimicking its designs, as Samsung has found out to its peril, the cheeky minx.
6. Samsung and everyone - whatever you want, darlings
In contrast to Apple, over the last year Samsung has cosied up with anyone and everyone, becoming the undisputed Casanova of the technology world.
Rumours swirled constantly throughout 2011 about who Samsung was going to jump into bed with. Nokia, RIM and the webOS operating system from HP were prime candidates.
Sadly, nothing ever materialised as the affairs fizzled out and Samsung spent most of its time getting the best out of its open relationship with Google.
This turned out to be particularly fruitful as the firms saw Android-based Galaxy devices flying off the shelves. Microsoft was also courted by Samsung, with the manufacturer making Windows Phone devices.
Samsung even managed to keep its volatile tryst with Apple going, supplying the iPhone-maker with critical components for many of its devices while embroiled in acrimonious legal battles over who gets custody of the design rights to tablet devices.
5. Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd: Spurned HP chiefs would make for a feisty match
There's nothing guaranteed to get the sparks flying more than a bit of loathing directed at a former flame and HP certainly has plenty of those knocking around.
Both Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd were given the "It's not me, it's you treatment" by the tech behemoth and found themselves left nursing a broken heart. Hurd even went straight on the rebound by cuddling up to Larry Ellison and Oracle.
Who knows what dirty secrets they could tell one another about their time at the company, and no doubt Leo Apotheker would be willing to join in, but as everyone's knows, two's company, three's a crowd.
Top 10 Valentine's Day technology matches made in heaven
Who's pushing each other's buttons in the steamy world of IT
4. Microsoft and Novell - an open relationship
Microsoft has always professed its hatred of open-source, with former chairman Bill Gates once describing Linux as a "malignant cancer" that threatened to destroy the software industry.
But in 2006, Microsoft and Novell entered into a joint agreement covering their respective intellectual property, and interoperability of their products, including Windows and Novell's Suse Linux.
For its part, Novell took a beating from the rest of the open source community, which saw it as "selling out". But it seems to have given reassurance to many companies looking to deploy a mixed Windows and Linux environment, and the two partners have since renewed their vows several times.
Novell was acquired by Attachmate in 2010, and as part of this deal much of its intellectual property was sold off to a consortium led by Microsoft.
Nevertheless, the romance still lives on, as Suse renewed the agreement with Microsoft last year, stating that the collaboration now serves more than 725 customers worldwide.
Meanwhile, Microsoft even sent a video to the Linux Foundation last year, congratulating it on 20 years of Linux. Could the software giant be getting sentimental in its middle age?
3. Larry Ellison and Mark Benioff - we all know hate equals love boys
The Oracle and Salesforce.com chiefs have had several well-documented public tiffs, most notably when Benioff's keynote at the Oracle Openworld conference was cancelled at the last minute.
It all boils down to that classic couples argument of how best to deliver applications to the end-users over the cloud. Salesfoce.com aims to offer both applications and software platforms to allow end users to build and host their own applications, while Oracle is keen to continue pushing traditional software.
Larry Ellison appeared to have had enough with the jibes from Benioff that Oracle appliances are 'fake clouds' by standing up him at Openworld. But is this all just playground antics?
Come on boys, we all know that you only verbally bash the ones you secretly adore, it is a playground classic. What better day to make put all your differences aside and have a drink under the stars with a few clouds floating by?
Top 10 Valentine's Day technology matches made in heaven
Who's pushing each other's buttons in the steamy world of IT
2. Martha Lane Fox and recent prime ministers
Like a scene from a plot-by-numbers rom-com Martha Lane Fox waltzes nonchalantly into the prime ministers officers and, with the flutter of her eyes and a reminder of her business acumen, is elevated to the role of digital champion.
Certainly Lane Fox appears to have a magnetic hold over the most powerful men in the country, with both David Cameron and Gordon Brown before him, falling for her internet charms and asking her to get the rest of the UK in a lather for the online world.
Furthermore, she's got confidence that her foxy wiles can generate enthusiasm among some 11,000 volunteers to help her encourage net virgins to get online. And with the backing of two prime minister behind her, there's no reason why Lane Fox won't prove successful and become the sweetheart of internet users across the land.
1. The over-sharing power couple of Mark Zuckerberg and Marissa Mayer
Some couples love to over share, updating the world on every little piece of their lives, writing horribly cutesy public messages to one another and host of other such nausea-inducing behaviours.
As such, the king of public displays, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, would be an ideal match for Google's pin-up girl and equally brainy Marissa Mayer, allowing both of them to post Facebook and Google+ updates about their love with unabashed glee.
For the rest of us it might make for an awful spectacle, but with the potential lovers' two firms going all out to banish our concerns about privacy and join in their information-overload love-in, what they need is a power couple to lead us to this wonderful future. Go on Mark, give her a poke.