2008: The year in tech

>> Sidney: Hello, I'm Sidney Das assumed spelling for ZDNet. It's almost time to close the books on 2008, but before we start singing Auld Lang Syne, we wanted to recap the top five events that changed the face of the tech industry. And here to help us do that, in case our memories are a bit fuzzy, which mine are, editor in chief for ZDNet, Larry Dignan assumed spelling. Larry, thanks for being with us today.

>> Larry: Any time.

>> Sidney: Okay, so top five. We'll start with the bottom of the list, the number five item.

>> Larry: Has to be Google Watch. This was the year where Google entered its awkward adolescent stage. It used to be this sort of glory stock, glory company where engineers are running around cooking stuff up. And this was a year where people sort of switched, and said all right, what do these projects add up to.

>> Sidney: And they had some big projects. They had Android, they had Chrome.

>> Larry: Chrome.

>> Sidney: They had a browser.

>> Larry: Then they had some other ones, like Lively, the virtual world thing that they killed. But I think that's, that's the biggest change, is it's looking like a grownup company. So I think 2008 will go down where you know, Google sort of lost some of its luster.

>> Sidney: Mm-hmm.

>> Larry: And right now folks are watching every move they make to see if they're recession proof.

>> Sidney: Right, some people are saying they aren't.

>> Larry: Yeah, it's kind of overdone. It's like every little search hiccup, like every market, every Comscore assumed spelling report, every, every everything.

>> Sidney: Over analyzing.

>> Larry: It's getting totally over analyzed. And then we'll find out in 2009 if they really are recession proof, but I've never met a recession proof company, so I doubt Google is one of them.

>> Sidney: Google is no exception.

>> Larry: Exactly.

>> Sidney: Okay, so we'll keep watching, and over analyzing Google.

>> Larry: Yes, exactly.

laughter

>> Sidney: It's fun, it's like a sport.

>> Larry: Gives us something to do.

>> Sidney: Exactly. Number four on the list has to be the hot product of the year.

>> Larry: iPhone. The big thing with the iPhone this year is that it became a grownup device. It's given Blackberry a little run for its money.

>> Sidney: A lot of growing up in 2008, huh?

>> Larry: There was, wasn't there?

>> Sidney: Yeah.

>> Larry: But it's become more business friendly, it's hooking up to your Exchange, it's you know, it's doing a lot of corporate friendly type things, where you know, the first iteration of the iPhone was really about you know, let's go out and do that cool flip thing with the browser and you know, it was a typical Mac type application.

>> Sidney: Mm-hmm.

>> Larry: And now it's more becoming the realm of real business folks.

>> Sidney: It's not just that the Blackberry will be the go to smart phone for people -

>> Larry: Yeah.

>> Sidney: - in business.

>> Larry: Yeah, the Blackberry's pretty entrenched.

>> Sidney: Mm-hmm.

>> Larry: You know, and they have -

>> Sidney: It's so very much in the finance industry and government agencies.

>> Larry: Yeah. I mean I still have one. But you know, they have their iPhone killer, which is the Blackberry Storm.

>> Sidney: Exactly.

>> Larry: So inaudible is clearly looking over it's shoulder, and Apple hasn't been shy about saying they want to tackle Rim assumed spelling.

>> Sidney: And sales of iPhone have been, have been hot.

>> Larry: Yeah.

>> Sidney: Untouchable almost.

>> Larry: They haven't been slowing, yeah.

>> Sidney: Yeah. Okay, number three on the list -

>> Larry: Is Obama's victory, and the naming of a CTO, which -

>> Sidney: Has never been done before.

>> Larry: Yeah, as of now we don't have the name of this person yet. But the big question here is whether this guy's actually gonna be able to escape the bureaucracy that is the U.S. government. You know, I've seen a lot of CIO's and the federal agencies, and these guys just get bogged down with agendas. And I mean it's like turning a cruise ship, it's not easy to do.

>> Sidney: Yeah.

>> Larry: But it is good that there will be a CTO to be named at some point. And just the fact that you know, this person is gonna be tying together a bunch of different loose ends in the technology front, and maybe even give us a technology strategy -

>> Sidney: Right.

>> Larry: - I think is pretty important.

>> Sidney: It seems like president elect Obama will be a big proponent of that, I mean given that he kind of owes part of his victory at least to technology -

>> Larry: Yeah.

>> Sidney: - the internet.

>> Larry: Yeah.

>> Sidney: Helped him with fund raising certainly.

>> Larry: It was the internet candidacy, really.

>> Sidney: Okay, moving on to number two.

>> Larry: Number two is -

>> Sidney: The issue that's on the forefront of many people's minds.

>> Larry: Oh yeah, that thing, the economy.

laughter

>> Sidney: Yeah, oh that thing.

>> Larry: Yeah, that. Oh the recession.

>> Sidney: Are you in denial?

>> Larry: The meltdown, total denial.

>> Sidney: Yeah.

>> Larry: The big credit crunch came this year, your 401k's, the 101k. And in the technology land you know, it has a wide impact. And on the consumer side it's you know, are folks gonna buy gadgets, it's a bah humbug Christmas.

>> Sidney: Right.

>> Larry: And you know, if they pick their gadgets, what are those gadgets gonna be?

>> Sidney: People are gonna be more selective about what they're purchasing.

>> Larry: Yeah, you're not gonna buy five gadgets, you're buying one.

>> Sidney: Yeah.

>> Larry: And on the business side, what are folks gonna invest in? It's pretty you know, the Gardner conference earlier this year in October, I mean they were preparing people for Armageddon. They told people to prepare for budgets down as much as 25%. Their official outlook's a little better than that, but you know, on the business technology side, you know, we're gonna have some clear winners and losers, cause some vendors are just gonna be pushed to the side.

>> Sidney: Not everybody's gonna make it through this recession, right?

>> Larry: Right.

>> Sidney: Okay. And so now we come to number one.

>> Larry: Which has to be the Microhoo soap opera. The quick recap is basically Microsoft offered a bunch of money to buy Yahoo, Jerry Yang said no, did everything in his power to prevent it, Microsoft walked away, Jerry Yang's sitting on a stock price that stinks. Jerry Yang is no longer CEO, now he's chief to Yahoo, and -

>> Sidney: There's nobody at the helm of Yahoo at this point in time.

>> Larry: Exactly. And it just changes day by day. Like we'll walk out of this room and there'll be some new development. I mean there's been everything floated from you know, let's take Yahoo private, which I have no idea how they've raised the money to do that, to Microsoft will buy Search, to you know, the list goes on. I mean it has so many variables right now. And the big question is what's Yahoo, you know, what should Yahoo be doing.

>> Sidney: Right. Where's their strength?

>> Larry: Their strength is just inaudible eyeballs.

>> Sidney: Right.

>> Larry: I mean I use a ton of Yahoo services. So you know.

>> Sidney: Seems like they need to figure out their strength, and then capitalize on that.

>> Larry: Yeah.

>> Sidney: Somehow.

>> Larry: I think maybe it just became too big, too big, too unwieldy, too many different strategies going on. But they need somebody to come in and you know, given them a coherent strategy.

>> Sidney: Right. So there we have it, the top five events that altered the tech world. Larry Dignan, thank you so much.

>> Larry: Any time.

>> Sidney: And as always, you can find the latest at blogs.zdnet.com.