Top 10 tech stories of the decade

IDG News Service - While the computer industry in the 1990s thrived as corporations re-engineered business processes to incorporate IT, this decade has seen technology truly become part of mainstream culture and commerce via the Internet and ever-cheaper and smaller computing devices. Yes, the Internet revolution began in the '90s, but it was not until this decade that 14-year-olds raced ahead of professionals in figuring out how to tap social networks with hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of contacts. Here, in not-quite chronological order, are the top technology stories of the decade, selected by the IDG News Service for their singular impact on the industry as well as their emblematic status as examples of the trends that shaped the course of IT.

The dot-com deathwatch

Just months after concerns about the Y2K bug fizzled, the tech-heavy Nasdaq, symbol of the "new economy" because of the many IT companies it lists, hit a high of 5048 ... for the decade. From that date (March 10, 2000, to be exact), over the next two and a half years, the index plunged almost 4,000 points, and never fully recovered. During those first years of the 2000s, companies burned through venture capital and IPO funds only to find that they couldn't stay in business long enough to raise cash the old-fashioned way -- offering actual products that people are willing to pay for. Lesson learned: The e-commerce companies and IT vendors that survived figured out how to deal with a more skeptical customer base and did not suffer as much as other sectors during the Great Recession at the tail end of the decade. Now IT appears poised to help lead the economy back on a growth path.

Microsoft is busted

In April 2000, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued the first big ruling in a series of antitrust decisions to hit the software giant during the decade. Jackson found that Microsoft maintained its monopoly power by anticompetitive means and illegally attempted to monopolize the Web browser market. The final judgment in the U.S. federal case established restrictions related to licensing agreements and ordered that Microsoft release some of its intellectual property. Microsoft also faced private and government antitrust cases involving individual U.S. states, Sun Microsystems, and the European Union, which fined Microsoft US$794 million in 2004. Ramifications persist. Microsoft still meets with U.S. officials who monitor its behavior, and the European Commission just this month accepted the company's promise to allow Windows users to choose which Internet browser they use, ending a browser-market investigation. The cases were a huge distraction for Microsoft but ultimately made its software work better with competing technology. They also provided a template of sorts for antitrust cases brought against Intel this year in the U.S. and Europe.