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Year in Review: Newsmakers

Industry leaders speak up

When the year began, Google opened for trading at a measly $197.

By the year's end, the stock had more than doubled in price, and some analysts said it was a lock for $500. Outsiders said the "Year of Google" was part of a bigger shift in the technology industry, one that would work against Microsoft.

But Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has been in this situation before. In the mid-'90s, Microsoft found itself playing second fiddle to Netscape before rising to the challenge and emerging triumphant. For Gates, Microsoft's future will turn on a new generation of software services that makes good on his 2000 Comdex prediction of information at people's fingertips.

Meanwhile, the rest of the industry wasn't waiting around to find out whose vision was right. Lots of buzz surrounded the prospects for community-driven media such as blogs and wikis--along with their kissing cousin, podcasts.

Digital time-shifting became all the rage with Web surfers, who used their portable MP3 players to consume broadcasted information in a radically new way. Maybe the old broadcast conglomerates weren't yet shaking in their boots. But they knew their universe was changing. And no less a personage than former MTV VJ Adam Curry soon found himself in the vanguard of this digital revolution.

But 2005 was also a year for marking legacies. Forty years after Gordon Moore issued his now-legendary dictum predicting the course of microprocessor development, Moore's famous law was still going strong. So was one of his disciples, Craig Barrett, who finished out his stewardship as CEO of Intel.

Peering into the crystal ball, it was difficult to say whether 2006 would be a breakthrough year for technology. Still, there were voices like AMD's Hector Ruiz predicting the advent of $100 PCs in the near-future.

Maybe it's not as crazy as it sounds at first blush. As more computer intelligence comes to reside on the network, why can't stripped-down computers cost as little as a dinner for two at a fancy downtown restaurant? This recalled the network computer vision promoted in the late 1990s by Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison and Sun Microsystems' CEO Scott McNealy.

The missing ingredient back then was a robust broadband infrastructure as pervasive as the modern phone system. But despite a decade's worth of progress, the state of the country's broadband infrastructure remained uneven. Some critics contended that the United States is even falling behind, pointing to the extensive broadband coverage in nations like South Korea and Japan.

The fix will involve the combined efforts of policy makers and private industry figures like Cisco CEO John Chambers--and that can't come any too soon, according to FCC Commissioner Michael Copps.

Speaking of broadband, a simmering debate over who should control the global Internet finally came to a head in Tunis, where the United Nations brought together the different factions. It may not be peace in our time--but it was a start.

--Charles Cooper

2005 Highlights

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Year in Review: Newsmakers

Industry leaders speak up

What makes Cisco run?

The man who's got mainstream radio quaking

Skype: Interference on the line?

From the Big Bang to big bucks

Getting real about wikimania

Adobe under construction

Gussying up for the Opera

Gates on Google: What, me worry?

Are we getting smarter or dumber?

Ray Kurzweil deciphers a brave new world

Glaser on finding harmony with Microsoft

Kevin Mitnick on hacking's evolution

Amazon's Bezos hits the books

Root servers: The real Net power