My Top 10 Tech moments in 2009

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10. The Satyam fraud

It was a bad start to the year for the Indian IT industry as the news of Satyam Computer Services’ Accounting Scandal started to emerge. The fraud of Rs.40 billion shocked the Indian corporate industry especially the investors and employees. Some of my friends in Satyam had a difficult time as they were desperate applying for jobs elsewhere. I am glad that the company is back on track after some good measures by the government.

9. HTC launches India’s first Android based phone

After Apple’s iPhone 3G, it was HTC’s turn to grab the attention of the Indian Mobile market. HTC launched its new touch screen phone powered by Google Andriod, HTC Magic. This is the first Android phone to hit the Indian market.

8. Steve Jobs back at work

He is a true inspiration to many people around the world and that includes me. In June 2009 he continued to inspire many as he returned back to work after 5 months following his liver transplant. When he delivered the keynote in his customary attire, he mentioned the word Twitter and the micro-blogging site was down with a 503 error for about 15 minutes. Good that Microsoft’s business was not 100% internet based 😉

7. Bing!

In May, 2009 Microsoft launched its decision engined coined Bing! Bing was a talking point for quite sometime at work and on Twitter. Bing was intended to do things differently from its competition(Google?) or even from Microsoft Live. Though it was far better than Live, it has not a reached a stage yet where it can be called a clear competition to Google. Bing is getting better and I can see better results compared to its early days.

6. Google Wave

The last time I saw everyone madly running after free invites was for GMail. In 2009 it was Google wave. Every techie I met had one question in mind – “Do you have any Google wave invites left?”. The requests continue even now in Facebook and through emails. Even without fully understanding what it is all about everyone was on the “Give me, give me” bandwagon. Those who got the invite saw their excitement turning in to confusion, including me. Google wave has a confusing interface and does take a long time to understand what it really does. But sure there are some powerful collaboration features that many people may find very useful in the long run.

5. Google Maps India launched driving directions

This was a huge time and fuel saver for me. Driving in Bangalore is maddening because of the traffic and it gets crazier when you get lost. Before Google Maps launched the driving directions, I always used to get lost in Bangalore, thanks to its bad sign boards, confusing roads and one ways. Nowadays I use Google maps in my Nokia N82 and it gives me an accurate direction most of the time. Google maps in India keeps getting better and hopefully will catch up to its US counterpart pretty soon.

4. Social networks and Twitter

Social networking was on the boom in 2009 with many people joining sites like Facebook and Twitter. Twitter has become one of the important social media tool. Everyone from newsreaders to politicians to writers, techies, companies etc. have their own Twitter handle to share and collect information from the masses. 2009 saw thousands of tweets spreading real-time information covering everything from the Indian Parliamentary Elections,the demise of Michael Jackson, casualties of Swine flu etc. etc.

2009 also saw a rise adaptation of single sign-on services from Google FriendConnect, Facebook Connect and Twitter connect. The power it has brought to the whole social networking arena is immense.

3. Google Chrome OS

Google announced its planned for Chrome OS and vision behind this venture. According to Google

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.

Chrome OS is expected to be out in the second half of 2010. This is exciting given the popularity of netbooks is on the rise.

2. ASP.NET MVC Released!

After working on the beta version for weeks and falling in love with it, this was a much awaited announcement for 2009. The announcements by Phil Haack and Scott Gu spread across the web development community like fire. It was a great start to the year for the ASP.NET community in particular! Kudos to the team who worked really hard to come out with the RC and the different releases thereafter.

ASP.NET MVC 1.0 Released, 2.0 Release

1. Windows 7

Definitely the hottest news of 2009 was the launch of Windows 7 on Oct 22nd. This was Microsoft’s best ever release in a decade. After its bad run with Vista, Microsoft had to come out with a OS that will win back its customers and take its grip on the OS market. Windows 7 did take care of the many issues with Vista and offered little more than its predecessor. Windows 7 is quite a relief to those who had to put with Vista.

Those were my top 10 tech moments in 2009, which was quite an eventful year. Hope this year turns out to be better and more exciting than last year. Happy News Year to you all! 🙂