Operators hope unity and openness will help them compete with proprietary stores such as Apple's or the Android market.

Google hopes to help users manage the increasingly large amount of social networking information they get.

Leo Apotheker has resigned as CEO and executive board member of global software giant SAP after 20 years with the company.

The CEO says she's happy with the results.

EliteBook laptops will come with up to three USB 3.0 ports.

Apple plans to buy mobile ad company Quattro Wireless for $275 million, a blog owned by the The Wall Street Journal said Monday, a move that would intensify Apple's growing competition with Google.

While the computer industry in the 1990s thrived as corporations re-engineered business processes to incorporate IT, this decade has seen technology truly become part of mainstream culture and commerce via the Internet and ever-cheaper and smaller computing devices. Yes, the Internet revolution began in the '90s, but it was not until this decade that 14-year-olds raced ahead of professionals in figuring out how to tap social networks with hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of contacts. Here, in not-quite chronological order, are the top technology stories of the decade, selected by the IDG News Service for their singular impact on the industry as well as their emblematic status as examples of the trends that shaped the course of IT.

Ten privacy and consumer groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), filed a complaint Thursday with the U.S.Federal Trade Commission, saying that Facebook's newly revamped privacy settings are deceptive and unfair.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has filed an antitrust-related lawsuit against Intel, charging the world's largest computer chip maker with illegally using its dominant market position to stifle competition and strengthen its monopoly for a decade.

Cisco Systems tried to partner with major server vendors several years ago before coming out with its own blade servers earlier this year, and it's still open to a partnership with IBM, Chairman and CEO John Chambers said Tuesday.

Users of Facebook and Yahoo will find more ways to link their actions on those sites next year, as Yahoo prepares what it calls a deep integration of Facebook with services like Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News.

A French court has fined eBay ?1.7 million (US$2.5 million) for failing to comply with an earlier ruling that required the online retailer to prevent the sale of certain brands of perfume to French consumers on its sites.

Lenovo will buy back the mobile phone unit that it spun off last year, reversing a move it originally made to focus on its core business in PCs, the company said late Friday.

The European Commission has accused manufacturers of cathode-ray tubes of running cartels in the markets for computer monitors and TVs, the regulator said Thursday.

Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen has been diagnosed with lymphoma.

Apple won a key legal victory in its legal battle with Psystar, as a federal judge has ruled that the clone-maker violated Apple's copyright when it sold PCs with Mac OS X pre-installed.

The cash portion of Intel's legal settlement with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) could shave as much as US$800 million off Intel's net profit in the fourth quarter, according to investment banking firm Credit Suisse.

Google is bulking up its phone offerings with the acquisition of Gizmo5, a company that offers voice-over-IP software for mobile phones and computers.

Onlookers say that Google is in charge of Android development, despite pitching the software as a community project. But experts say that could be the only way Google can ensure that the software is actually released.

With this week's release of Verizon Wireless' Droid phone comes the first real test of the potential for fragmentation with Android.