On Jan. 2, 2000, the whole thing was seen as a bad dream and promptly forgotten. IBM said the average large company spent up to 400 man-years on the problem. Was that effort wasted? No - how else could we have justified scrapping those old Cobol systems?

The new foreign face of outsourcing

The practice of IT outsourcing stretches back to 1949 with ADP's mission to be the payroll service for the world. In 1962, Ross Perot started Electronic Data Systems Corp. to be a general-purpose IT outsourcing shop. And when Lou Gerstner took over IBM in 1993, his turnaround strategy was largely based on pushing IBM's outsourcing services. But outsourcing became a contentious labor and political issue early this century when U.S. corporations stepped up sending IT work offshore during an economic downturn. India's offshoring revenues in fiscal 2005 skyrocketed 34.5 percent to $17.2 billion, with more than 1 million Indian IT workers serving overseas customers.

The rise of personal computing

"The concept of 'a PC on every desk' has gone from being a gleam in the bespectacled eyes of a young Bill Gates to a near campaign promise by H. Ross Perot," Computerworld wrote in 1992. But then we went on to suggest that the real impact of personal computing wouldn't be felt until well into the next millennium.