The top 10 news stories of 2006

When batteries attack: The Great Battery Recall of 2006

It was the biggest recall in the history of IT and consumer electronics. Sparked by reports that lithium-ion batteries could short circuit and catch fire, Dell in August recalled more than 4 million laptop batteries. The move was soon followed by manufacturers around the world including Apple, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Lenovo and Toshiba. More than 8 million batteries were recalled, leading to yet another black eye in an annus horribilis for Sony, the manufacturer of the faulty cells. The recall, startup costs for the delayed PlayStation 3 game console and poor PlayStation Portable sales pushed Sony's operations into the red.

Mac on Intel: chip industry realigns

Apple's January launch of the first Mac PCs running on Intel chips was historic. For decades, Apple's insistence on going its own way has been its strength, and also its weakness: the company has traded seamlessly designed products for market share ... at least, until the iPod came along. But Intel chips have breathed new life into the Mac line. A 30 per cent jump in fiscal fourth-quarter Mac sales helped the company generate $US546 million in profit and blow away analyst expectations. The company's profit margin is great: in its last reported quarters, Dell had more than 300 per cent greater revenue than Apple, but only 24 per cent greater profit. Meanwhile, in a blow to Intel, Dell in May announced that it would for the first time use chips from Intel archival, AMD, in multiprocessor servers by the end of the year.

Patent wars singe BlackBerry

After the US Supreme Court declined in January to hear Research In Motion's appeal in its patent battle with NTP, industry watchers started sounding the death knell for RIM's BlackBerry. A $US612.5 million March agreement between the companies, however, ensured that RIM would never have to worry about NTP patent claims again. The case is emblematic of the disruptions caused by patent disputes, which often lead to near-automatic injunctions that prevent companies from selling products that allegedly infringe on patents -- even before final patent rulings have been made. Many industry insiders found wisdom in the US Supreme Court's May ruling that courts need to look at multiple factors instead of immediately awarding injunctions. The court sided with eBay in a patent infringement case brought by online auction company MercExchange. But patent wars continue: NTP sued Palm in November.

Vista delays .... and launches

In November, after numerous delays, Microsoft launched Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007. Though Microsoft CEO, Ballmer, called it "the biggest launch in our company's history", it didn't have that feel. Consumer versions of Vista and Office won't be available until the New Year, thus missing the holiday buying season. The products are important: among many other things, the level of interoperability among them is greater than ever before. But the launch may go down in history for another reason: it could be the last of the traditional big products launches. With more people tapping into hosted applications, Google experimenting with Internet-based productivity applications and users receiving a steady stream of product updates over the Web, big-bang launches may fade into the past.

Gates steps back ... to plunge into philanthropy

Bill Gates' June announcement that he will step out of his daily role at Microsoft in July 2008 was a milestone that comes at a transition time. While he will remain chairman, Gates will focus on philanthropy. Microsoft was rarely if ever a first mover as, for example, Apple has been. But by combining technical acumen and business brilliance, Gates embodied the quintessentially American entrepreneurial knack of seizing a great idea and commercialising it beyond people's wildest dreams. His deal to provide the operating system for the IBM PC in 1981 fuelled the personal computing revolution. Over the next 25 years Gates led Microsoft to embrace the graphical interface and bring it to the masses, conquer the desktop market and, ultimately, navigate the shoals of the Internet era. Microsoft faces further battles in the Internet age, against Google and other companies that will spring up. Meanwhile, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has assets of about $US30 billion. The world watches to see if Gates can revitalise philanthropy, as he did computing.