2004: A year of high-tech changes.

This past year has seen the applications space shrink by one key player, the PC market lose one of its biggest, and the open source movement grow in influence

By InfoWorld news staff

The year 2004 defied predictions: IBM sold its PC arm to a Chinese competitor, Oracle managed to swallow PeopleSoft, and -- perhaps the most dramatic of all -- Microsoft and Sun Microsystems aligned to make their products interoperate.

This year's headlines also revealed plot twists that were not so surprising. The adoption of open source software continued unabated; Microsoft deferred its dream of a unified file system in Longhorn; Web services standardization extended its march; storage vendors offered intriguing designs to handle data; and Dell CEO Kevin Rollins said his company wants to add AMD chips to its product lineup.

Big Blue turns new leaf

The most noteworthy desktop computing story of the year was IBM unloading its PC division to Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo. The deal, worth $1.75 billion, ended IBM's decade-long internal debate as to whether it should remain in the thin-margin PC market.

What finally convinced IBM to get out …