News 

July

July was a good month for Apple which announced that it had sold 500,000 iPhones in the US during the first weekend on sale, teeing up a media frenzy as to when the "revolutionary" device would be hitting UK shores. November, as it turned out, though a hefty price tag meant British reception to the device was rather more... reserved that it had been in the US.

The BBC's iPlayer also suffered a lukewarm reception, as concerns over bugs and missing features took their toll. It was not the first of the problems the on-demand platform would face, as later announcements that Linux and Mac users would be receiving a stripped-down version brought storms of protest. As of December, the BBC says it is committed to a fully featured iPlayer for non-Windows machines, though it refuses to a give a timeframe.

August

August brought bad tidings for UK PC manufacturer Evesham, which confirmed it was heading into administration only to be bailed out by the former founder of Time Computers, Tahir Mohsan. We would later learn that Evesham had collapsed owning around £7 million to hundreds of creditors including AMD and Microsoft, explaining rather succinctly why the former wouldn't deal with the new company.

August was also the month in which the Lords' Science and Technology Committee described the internet as a "wild west", before claiming the government's "laissez faire" attitude to online security was undermining confidence in the internet. The report was subsequently brushed under the carpet by the government, which roundly ignored each of the 23 recommendations, leaving the Lords fuming.

September

September was a struggle for Microsoft, which had to endure the double ignominy of extending XP's shelf life by an extra five months and having to offer OEM manufacturers an option to "downgrade" from Vista to XP, as its much-hyped operating system failed to take off with either businesses or consumers.

In sharp contrast, Firefox was busy turning Internet Explorer's browser monopoly over in grand style with its 400 millionth download. Mozilla, the company behind the open-source browser, would later claim it had around 125 million active users and had "caught Microsoft asleep at the wheel".

October

October was another bad month for Vista with DSGi, the group behind PC World and Currys, laying the blame

Broadband was back on the agenda too, with Ofcom's Consumer Panel calling ISPs together to explain why customers weren't getting the speeds they paid for, just as researchers revealed the UK's broadband was among the slowest in Europe. The consultation would lead to the Consumer Panel recommending a mandatory code of practice for ISPs, including an obligation to move customers to a different package if actual line speeds "were significantly lower than the package they bought".

October's bright note arrived with the release of the Asus Eee PC, an ultra-light, ultra-cheap laptop that left reviewers in raptures.

November

November was a terrible month for the government which owned up to losing the personal details of 25 million child benefit claimants in the post. A feat it followed up by losing the records of three million driving test candidates just a month later.

November also saw Google take the wrapping off its Android mobile OS, which it envisaged "powering thousands of different phone models." A dream it intended to make a reality by forging partnerships with industry heavyweights including Motorola and Samsung, but which could be scuppered by the absence of Nokia, among others.

November was also the month competitiveness minister Stephen Timms met with leading telecoms executives to discuss Britain's broadband future. Timms had earlier mooted the idea of the government part funding a fibre-to-the-home solution, though with BT touting its 21CN network and Ofcom loudly sceptical about fibre no-one was holding their breath on a compromise being reached.

December

December was a particularly chilly month for Facebook, which was forced to apologise to users after being bombarded by protests following the introduction of a web monitoring feature that notified users' friends when they visited affiliated websites.

It was the latest in a string of setbacks for the company, which had already been investigated for not removing users profiles and bombarding its users with ads. Despite that, Microsoft still saw fit to invest £120 million in the company for a 1.6% stake, valuing the social networking site at a cool £7.5 billion.

And, is if to prove the old adage that the more things change, the more they stay the same, December closed as January opened with Microsoft and the XO hitting the headlines. The software giant admitted it was working on putting XP on the XO, ensuring that even children in developing nations know what a blue screen of death is.