There's more than a little irony in the fact that at the end of a decade that's seen tremendous advancements in technology, the biggest story, without a doubt, is not about a dazzling new invention. Rather, it was a short-sighted programming decision made decades ago that created the technology story that this year spread like out-of-control ivy and poked its tentacles into virtually every media outlet in the world: Y2K.
By now everyone who doesn't live in a cave (and quite a few who plan to move into one for New Year's Eve) has heard of the world's most famous computer bug. It didn't start out as a bug; it started out as a memory-saving programming technique: Why use four digits for a date when you can use two? Alas, that question has now been answered, and in the process untold billions of dollars have been spent - and millions of consultants employed - to ensure that our computer-controlled world doesn't come to an end because it thinks it's 1900 when the clock ticks over to Jan. 1, 2000.
By now, most IS professionals seem confident that on New Year's Day, Y2K will be one big nonstory.
However, viruses set to trigger on Jan. 1 may provide some diversion for the thousands of data center staff (and computer journalists) who have to work over the holiday "just in case."
Among the other top stories:
- The Microsoft antitrust trial. Bill, maybe you should have settled out of court. Your video deposition - just one long length of the rope with which Microsoft has been hanging itself all through the trial - was not your finest hour. We know you don't care what we think of you -we don't work for Microsoft, so we must not be very smart. But the general opinion is that Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson is very smart, and while he hasn't yet delivered a verdict, he's crafted a tight legal finding that calls you a monopolist. Still, since the courtroom-drama phase of the case ended, we've missed the entertainment of watching Microsoft's legal maneuvers crash about as often as our Windows desktop. It's hard to pick the most priceless moment, but the "canned" demo purporting to show that removing Internet Explorer cripples the Windows 98 operating system comes close. Government lawyers showed the tape wasn't quite what it appeared to be. Kids, you can fake it at a trade show, but not in federal court.
- The continued rise of Linux. Last year "the little engine that could" of operating systems became a household name. This year it became a bandwagon that major vendors such as Hewlett-Packard and IBM decided to jump on. Vendors also spied a new buzzword in the open-source method under which the operating system's creator, Finn Linus Torvalds, has made the code freely available and incorporated programmers' enhancements. Sun and Apple, among others, have gone "open source" with some of their products - though not quite as openly as Torvalds. Finally, Linux also became a stock-market phenomenon: VA Linux set a record for a first-day percentage gain on Wall Street. The small company that distributes and supports the hot operating system saw its share value rise nearly 700% in the first day of trading.
- MP3 and the online music revolution. The online music tidal wave rolled over the recording industry and its copyright concerns this year. MP3 has become the most popular way to compress audio files on the Internet for downloading and playback, but it doesn't offer copy protection. The record companies this year found a raft to cling to: the Secure Digital Music Initiative specification, which, although not yet fully implemented, provides some measure of reassurance if yet not complete copyright protection. In any case, major labels this year jumped into online music distribution, and announced plans for new music sites. New devices to play tunes downloaded from the Internet - such as an offering from Toshiba and Sony's forthcoming Vaio MusicClip and MP3 Walkman - are joining Rioport's Rio and will soon be must-have accessories.
- Telecom consolidation - again. The apparently inexorable march to One World Telephone Company continues. MCI WorldCom, itself the product of a megamerger, bought Sprint. Meanwhile, the merger between Vodafone Group PLC and AirTouch Communications created the world's largest wireless telephony company. In Europe, however, flirtations and even betrothals haven't ended at the altar: Deutsche Telekom AG's romance with Telecom Italia SpA went nowhere but did anger the Germans' alliance partner, France Telecom SA. And just this month, Nordic sweethearts Sweden's Telia AB and Norway's Telenor AS decided to call the whole thing off despite a merger deal signed in October.
- Software as a service: The ASP market. It's not quite coming full-circle to the old days of time-sharing on mainframes, but the idea of companies not owning software, and rather renting applications hosted on a service company's computers, gained currency this year. The '90s twist is using the Internet to deliver these services. Right now, the application service provider market seems more a gleam in the eyes of vendors who smell an opportunity than something for which users are clamoring. But it could be just the ticket for small and midsize businesses - which represent a huge segment of the market - that don't want to wrestle with implementation and maintenance issues.
- Free everything - with some strings attached. It was easy to get something for almost nothing this year. With the cost of PCs dropping through the floor, some vendors were in fact giving them away - in return for the recipient providing detailed market research information, signing an Internet service contract, or agreeing to use a screen with a certain amount of real-estate permanently devoted to advertising. Free Internet service was all the rage in Europe, where it seemed that every week brought the announcement of another provider offering at least bare-bones access and e-mail accounts to all takers - who for the most part still had to pay hefty line charges to their telephone companies.
- Handhelds and smartphones are on the move. One of the hottest - and most hotly contested - segments of the hardware market this year was a handheld device. While 3Com's Palm devices dominated the scene from a computing perspective, many Europeans and Asians saw the mobile market from a different point of view: They upgraded their wireless phones to ever-smarter models. Wireless Internet will be the application to watch in 2000. An intermediate step that showed some progress this year was Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), which permits mobile users to view Web pages coded in wireless markup language. Most mobile carriers in Europe made WAP-related announcements this year, but users are still waiting for WAP-capable phones, due early next year.
- Taiwan quakes, the global PC industry trembles. The severe earthquake that struck Taiwan in September left no doubt to the importance of the island's place in the global PC supply chain. While production at the plants making all manner of PC components resumed fairly quickly, supply concerns were felt immediately in rising memory-chip prices, and manufacturers around the world fretted about their ability to keep their product pipelines flowing. But in the end, the disaster's human toll was far more significant and lasting than its effect on the PC industry.
RELATED LINKS
