In every trend, there is always a moment that crystallizes the “essence.” Let’s take a look back at 2005, a year full of events, upheavals, and seismic changes, through these 10 snapshots with Infoworld.
1. 01/01/2005: Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Defense Mandate RFID Implementation
Whether it was ready or not, RFID finally knocked on the door. One hundred top product suppliers for retail giant Wal-Mart were required to implement RFID barcodes starting on the first day of 2005. On the same day, the U.S. Department of Defense’s decision requiring all suppliers to use RFID technology came into effect.
2. 07/01/2005: Oracle Completes Acquisition of PeopleSoft
2005 was a year of major mergers. Although Oracle’s $10.3 billion acquisition of PeopleSoft wasn’t the most expensive “marriage” of the year (Symantec generously spent $13.5 billion to acquire Veritas in July), everyone knew how arduous Oracle’s “betrothal” process was.
3. 05/04/2005: The Book “The World is Flat” is Published
For the first time, the hidden aspects of the “offshoring” issue were brought to light in Thomas Friedman’s book on globalization. Even by the end of the year, debates surrounding offshoring and the protection of domestic workers in the U.S. remained heated.
4. 22/05/2005: CardSystems’ System is Hacked
A security vulnerability in CardSystems’ credit system led to over 40 million credit card numbers falling into the hands of hackers. This incident marked the pinnacle of a “disastrous” year for cybersecurity, with a series of high-profile scandals. Alongside this, the trend of laptops or personal computers containing sensitive information being stolen to exploit internal data surged. Ultimately, consumers were always the ones who suffered the most.
5. 14/06/2005: Sun Launches Open Source Solaris
On June 14, Sun Microsystems released Solaris as open-source software and made the operating system’s source code public. Solaris was one of many technologies that Sun decided to open-source in 2005, aiming to give a boost to open-source technology in the enterprise customer segment.
6. 28/06/2005: AMD Sues Intel
A significant transfer of power occurred that no newspaper could ignore. AMD, who had long lamented its “underdog” status, solidified its position with a push for dual-core chips and a federal lawsuit accusing Intel of unfair competition. Simultaneously, Intel faced several embarrassing setbacks.
7. 21/09/2005: SOX Law Enforcement Delayed Again
For the third consecutive time, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was forced to extend the deadline for companies with revenues under $75 million to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 404 to a new date: July 15, 2007.
8. 21/09/2005: Massachusetts Votes to Approve Open Document
On September 21, the Massachusetts Public Utilities Commission approved a decision whose importance transcended state borders. The decision to standardize the Open Document format sparked intense debate, drawing attention to open standards and forcing Microsoft to urgently submit the Office Open XML format to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
9. 04/10/2005: Google Announces Web-Based OpenOffice
The Web 2.0 trend was proving its strong allure. Google and Sun jointly announced that Google would release a client version of Sun OpenOffice over the Internet on an unspecified future date. Shortly after, Microsoft had to scramble to keep up with its competitor by announcing Live Software, a plan to provide software as a service over the Web.
10. 07/11/2005: SQL Server and Visual Studio 2005 Released
These highly anticipated products from Microsoft received positive reviews, offering numerous improvements in performance and stability for deployment systems.
Thien Yi