2006 Year in Review

• 10 developments that kept local tech companies in the news

An excellent article in the Seattle Times that talks about:

1) Amazon sells technology
2) Clearwire launches
3) Social networks grow up
4) RealNetworks buys WiderThan
5) Nintendo's Wii launches new era in video gaming
6) F5 Networks and stock-options scandal
7) Loudeye sold to Nokia
8) Real estate goes online
9) Icos sale changes local biotech picture
10) Online video surges

• Hits and Misses of 2006

Source: Eweek

Bill Gates and Scott McNealy stepped down

Oracle has bought 13 companies

Research in Motion's Pearl was a BIG success !

HP gained the first position by overtaking Dell in the PC division worldwide

Dell faced a lot of problems

Microsoft released Vista -2007

• 2006 Web Technology Trends

Source: Read Write Web

-Year of the social network.MySpace, YouTube, Facebook,Orkut,Bebo

-Google buying YouTube for $1.65 B

-RSS continues to inch towards the mainstream - Yahoo integrated it into Y! Mail Beta, Microsoft is utilizing it more

-2006 was also the year that Web 2.0 got overhyped

-Google dominated the news and buzz this year

-Microsoft pushed ahead with its Windows Live strategy (its Web-based suite of products and services)

-Yahoo had a steady product year (but ending with organizational issues).

-2006 also saw the return of the VC money (see web 2.0 hype
above!).

- Corporate blogging got popular in 2006 and blogs are usually part of the mix now in marketing plans.

- VoIP space showed signs of hotting up. Skype now has a bunch
of new competitors, all aiming to disrupt the existing telecoms industry.

- Browser Wars 2.0. Firefox enjoyed strong growth this year and released its 2.0
browser in October. 2006 was also (not coincidentally) the year that Microsoft
finally upgraded its Internet Explorer browser, to 7.0.