Stories by: Marc Ferranti

Layoffs and other cost-cutting announcements from EMC, Lenovo, On Technologies and Logitech, piling on earnings warnings from Intel and Time Warner, are putting a damper on the 2009 outlook for IT.

What started out as a banking crisis became, in 2008, a story for everyone: retailers, consumers, auto workers -- and tech professionals. Though it wasn't business as usual, some big mergers -- like HP buying EDS -- were executed. Long-awaited products like the Android-based G1 "Google phone" were launched. Standards wars involving file formats like OOXML and hardware technology like Blu-Ray concluded. The battle against spam purveyors like McColo went on ... and on. Microsoft, moving into middle age and struggling to gain ascendance on the Web, was involved in many of the biggest stories of the year. The most influential entrepreneur of our time, Bill Gates, moved on to focus on philanthropy. Here, not necessarily in order of importance, is the IDG News Service's pick for top 10 technology stories of the year.

SAP will bring a unified interface across its suite of business applications over the next few quarters as part of an ongoing effort to make its software easier to implement, according to company co-CEO Leo Apotheker.

The US financial crisis is taking a toll on mergers and acquisitions and share prices in the technology sector, causing the tech-heavy Nasdaq to slump to a new 52-week low Thursday, but industry watchers have an underlying confidence in the midterm scenario for IT vendor revenue.

As the U.S. financial services crisis roiled markets around the world, stock buybacks from bellwethers Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard and earnings reports from Red Hat and Research in Motion caught the eye of IT investors.

Even though a smattering of IT vendors including Dell and Nortel issued earnings warnings this week, industry insiders remain hopeful that tech companies won't be dragged down as Wall Street giants collapse.

Despite turmoil on Wall Street, U.S. spending on IT will increase more than previously expected, though the outlook for 2009 is dimming, Forrester Research said Wednesday.

As the US markets take a break for the long Independence Day weekend, economic worries and a disastrous June on the markets are battering shares of high-fliers including Apple, Google and Amazon, underscoring concerns about tech-sector growth.

The worst quarter for tech stocks in five-and-a-half years has ended, but even though mobile technology and spending news sparked some hope this week, IT investors can't breathe a sigh of relief yet.

Concerns about Oracle earnings and Google's ad business added to the usual worries about the economy this week, as Motorola's plan to split up sparked some enthusiasm among company watchers.

A weak forecast from Cisco marked another roller coaster week for technology companies on the stock market.