Just about a month after the Win 7 launch, Microsoft's archnemesis, Google, released its Chrome operating system to the open-source community. Google said Chrome, due out in about a year, will be faster, simpler and more secure than existing OSes. It probably will be, because it does a lot less than current operating systems. Chrome runs only Web-based applications and will not even be able to run applications built for Google's own Android mobile OS. That, and the fact that peripherals for Chrome-based machines will have to comply with specific hardware reference designs, means that in no way can it be a replacement for current PC OSes. But that's the point. Computer users are spending more time accessing Web services and applications. Not many PC owners are ready to throw out their hard drives, but take-up of small, 'Net-centric devices will one day lead to a tipping point where the majority of users tap the Web for virtually all their computing needs.

In the end, the two companies worked out something that was less than a marriage of convenience, but which nevertheless managed to fundamentally alter one of the legendary names in Internet search. A year-and-a-half after Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion, kicking off a series of stormy, on-again-off-again talks, the two companies announced a search deal aimed at giving them leverage against Google. The companies agreed to a revenue-sharing deal calling for Microsoft's Bing to run Yahoo's search site and for Yahoo to sell premium search advertising services for both companies. This relegates the Yahoo search engine to the dustbin of also-rans, and puts pressure on Carol Bartz, who took the CEO reins from founder Jerry Yang, to build up Yahoo's non-search technology and services to the point where they can sustain the company. Investors are still holding their breath -- Yahoo shares are trading at half the $31 Microsoft offered almost two years ago.

Barack Obama took office with an agenda that included putting IT in the stimulus bill. In February, in the wake of Senate approval, the House of Representatives passed a stimulus package including $7.2 billion for broadband deployment, $17 billion for incentives to adopt electronic health records and $11 billion to hook up the electricity grid to the Internet. Obama, an avid BlackBerry user, had put tech, notably social networking and business intelligence, to work in his campaign. This year, the White House has deployed the Drupal open-source content management system, tapped YouTube for communications, and encouraged projects such as for data junkies and for the money-followers. The General Services Administration, meanwhile, is opening up a "cloud storefront." In October, the Federal Communications Commission filed a notice of proposed rule-making on net neutrality rules, which would prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content. It already seems that one of Obama's legacies will be the government's activism in, and tighter embrace of, technology.