2004 Top 10: The big stories

If there were any lingering doubts that we are in the post-PC era, several big stories this year should have cleared them up. The sale of IBM's PC business to China's Lenovo Group and the death of Comdex were powerful reminders that IT is in a transitional stage. When one of the hottest business stories of the year involves an IPO of a company whose technology helps people find information on the Net, it's certain that the network, to paraphrase the well-known dictum of Sun Microsystems, has become the computer.

This transitional era involves not only shifts in computing technology per se, but issues related to law and technology strategy. Would technology advance more rapidly if patents were disallowed? Can users deploy mission-critical open source systems secure in the knowledge that the legal underpinnings of the code are sound? There are no easy answers, as the biggest stories of the year reveal.

Here are the top 10 IT stories of the year, not necessarily in order of importance:

-- IBM bows to reality, sells PC unit to Lenovo

If there ever was a sign of the times, it was IBM's sale of its PC unit to China's Lenovo Group just a few weeks before the year ended. The deal, which will give IBM more than a billion U.S. dollars in cash and equity, calls for IBM to keep its foot in the PC arena in order to continue offering a full range of services and products. IBM will own 18 percent of Lenovo, which will be headed by a current IBM executive and headquartered in New York. Still, there is no doubt that the company that gave legitimacy to the PC revolution of the 1980s essentially is exiting the PC business because margins are too thin and the competition is more fierce than ever. Analysts expect more vendor consolidation over the next few years. The Lenovo deal also pointed to ...

-- China: The next India, or the next ... U.S.?

While Western vendors have for years been beating down the door to get into China, this year the country began to emerge as a player in its own right. Speaking in Beijing in September, Cisco Systems President and Chief Executive Officer John Chambers said China "will become the IT center of the world." He was speaking in terms of decades, but nevertheless the year has seen major companies such as Accenture and IBM, as well as Indian services providers such as Wipro, establish or expand outsourcing facilities in the country. The facilities still cater mainly to the local markets, but China's IT and facilities infrastructure is stronger than India's. As China fortifies its foreign language skills and piracy laws, look for its increasing presence in the service sector. Meanwhile, hardware and networking companies such as Lenovo and Huawei Technologies are reporting rapid international growth, while software companies such as Red Flag Software are starting to take more of a leadership role in international software trends.

-- Oracle v. PeopleSoft part II: Larry wins it.