IBM dominated computing until the late 1980s. But its 1981 release of the IBM PC and the acceptance of PC clones, which were packed with Microsoft Corp. 's software, created a desktop computing market that changed the face of IT and put Microsoft at the center of power in the industry. Software developers flocked to DOS, and later Windows, to create thousands of applications, helping propel Microsoft's desktop operating system market share to more than 90 percent in the 1990s.

The government's concern about a Microsoft monopoly started with a 1991 investigation and culminated in 2000, when a federal district court judge found the company guilty of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act. Microsoft now faces threats from Linux, Google and Europe's antitrust regulators.

The Y2k 'problem'

Nowadays, when you're prompted to enter a date, you'll see something like "mm/dd/yyyy." Quite an innovation, that four-digit year.

The first printed mention of a Y2k Armageddon was made in Computerworld in 1984. In 1993, we printed Peter de Jager's estimate that Y2k repairs would cost US$100 billion. As hysteria mounted, cost estimates soared to close to $1 trillion.