We at InfoWorld.com  like to think that our coverage of the news and trends shaping the enterprise technology world is the best in the business. But not even InfoWorld (not to mention our competitors) can connect all the dots as they're forming — the welter of news and the fast pace of events sometimes makes that difficult. That's why we've revisited the sea of dots to make those connections that weren't evident at first.

[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]

Our staff reporters, editors and contributors have taken a hard look at 2007 and come up with a list of 10 stories that you need to know about as we enter what looks to be a challenging, fast-paced New Year.

Application development? Java is becoming the new Cobol. Hardware and networking? A new generation of blade servers is moving into the small-to-medium market, and end-to-end Ethernet has finally arrived. We’ve looked at security issues and found that you need to worry more about Mac malware and less about e-mail attachments. And don’t neglect the changes in the open source business model (they could cost you money) and the surprising news about the importation of foreign workers to Silicon Valley.

We think you’ll find these stories surprising, interesting and above all, useful. Have a great 2008.

1.  Java is becoming the new Cobol
2.  Sun Microsystems is back in the game
3.  Hackers take aim at Mac OS X
4.  There are some threats you can worry less about
5.  Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits
6.  Open source’s new commercial strategy
7.  End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives
8.  Blade servers arrive for the masses
9.  BI is dead; long live BI
10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers