Some years are better than others.  Some are worse. Some you want to forget.  Some you want to remember. 2007 was no exception.  It was a year filled with swings, misses, home runs, strikeouts, and occasionally getting picked off at first base.  Rookies burst onto the scene and made big splashes, hoping to still be around in the Spring.  Seasoned veterans countered youthful exuberance with poise and experience, knowing that the road is long, with many a winding turn.

Are we talking baseball?  Heck no.  We’re talking about technology.

2007 began with the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.  Chairman Gates (Bill) led off the event on Monday with a keynote address (yawn) where he demonstrated (stretch) Microsoft’s vision for the digitally connected world of tomorrow (fidgety legs).  A vision which, by the way, has you plugged in to the Internet much like Neo in The Matrix.  But, in Gates’ future, you’re not a human battery powering renegade computers – you’re a product-consuming Energizer bunny, your every move monitored to ensure you receive the targeted advertising and marketing to keep you going, going, going.  To the mall.  To the online catalog.  To the pay-per-view button.  But, I digress.

Pity poor Michael Dell, chairman of the computer company bearing his name.  The guy who, ten years ago, stated that Apple should just shut down the company and give the money back to the shareholders.  Anyway, he had the unenviable task of giving the second CES keynote address to a half-full room on Tuesday - the same day that Steve Jobs took the Macworld Expo stage in San Francisco to deliver the keynote address before a standing/squatting/kneeling-room-only crowd to introduce the iPhone.  Jobs also announced that Apple’s next major upgrade to their Mac operating system, nicknamed “Leopard”, would be delayed from the spring of 2007 until the fall, to focus more resources on the coming iPhone.

Oh, and as to that “shut down Apple and give the money back to the shareholders” advise - as of this writing, Apple’s market capitalization is:  $164 billion (and climbing).  Dell’s: $56 billion. Something about shoes and other feet comes to mind.  But, I digress again.

Later in January, Microsoft released Windows Vista.  After six years of delays resulting in feature cuts and billions of dollars in development and marketing costs, Vista has fizzled.  Despite improvements in graphics, desktop search, and security, within a few months high upgrade pricing and compatibility problems caused users (and PC manufacturers) to clamor for the ability to “downgrade” back to XP.

Late in May, at the D5 Technology Conference in Arizona and a month ahead of the scheduled release of the iPhone, Microsoft revealed and demonstrated their own touch-screen technology called “Surface”.  The Surface interface is projected on a screen atop a 30-inch diagonal, $10,000 coffee table.  Initial Surface units will roll out in the Spring of 2008, and will be used for gambling, dining, and as information kiosks.

In late June the iPhone was finally released.  Crowds dwarfing those at the “Yawn Starts Now” Vista release waited in line, in some cases for days, to snatch up the new multi-touch, web-browsing phones.  Time magazine chose the iPhone as its 2007 Invention of the Year.

September brought the release of the much-anticipated third (and possibly final) installment of the Halo video game trilogy.  The game (exclusive on Microsoft’s Xbox 360) produced a record one million preorders and recorded $170 million in sales in the first 24 hours.

In October, Apple released Mac OS 10.5 “Leopard”, which sold two million copies the first weekend.

What will 2008 bring?  We’ll address that next time.