Top 10 highs and lows of 2009

2. Digital Economy Bill
Iain Thomson: It's a sign of governments in distress at the end of their term that stupid laws are put on the books, either to try to whip up support via populism or to settle old scores.

One wonders what the motivation was behind the Digital Economy bill. In its current form, the bill will raise the cost of being online significantly by forcing ISPs to police content, a role they neither want nor feel able to do. Having to perform deep packet inspection is not only costly but also raises the possibility of legal action from privacy groups.

Developers are also up in arms about the bill, since it will significantly increase their costs and photographers and authors are also voicing protest. But it is Lord Mandleson's support for zero tolerance on piracy that is going to cause the most fuss if the bill is passed.

As it stands, the bill will enforce a “three strikes and you're out” policy on internet users suspected of illegally downloading pirated material. The evidence for this will be provided by media companies and won't be subject to a judicial review, so a lot of companies and individuals will receive letters threatening to cut them off. Thanks to the use of IP-spoofing technology, we're going to see an awful lot of false positives on this one and the resultant havoc may show unworkable the system is.

Shaun Nichols: As with net neutrality, the Digital Economy bill was a stunning example of just how completely clueless lawmakers are when it comes to technology. They are basically letting the record labels and studios write the legislation for them.

Fortunately, law schools around the world are filled with young people who will one day take over those government positions with the memories of these sort of heavy-handed tactics fresh in their minds. Woe betide the record studio exec who has to deal with a congressman who was sued for thousands of dollars for downloading music while in college.

This is what gives me confidence that many of these ludicrous rulings and laws will not hold up. The digital age divide may still be strong, but once the current generation of legislators moves on, virtually all its successors will have a far better understanding of the technology and will be less prone to manipulation from studios and telcos.

Here's hoping that day comes sooner rather than later.

1. Job cuts
Shaun Nichols: This was an easy choice for number one. While the falling budgets and security issues could make work difficult for IT staff, at least they could take home a pay cheque. Hundreds of thousands of people in the industry were not so lucky.

The cuts began in late 2008 and became heaviest in the early part of 2009. At one point it became difficult to even write about all the layoffs, it was almost like having to write obituaries every day. And it was a thousand times harder for those who lost their jobs and those who had to push friends and valued co-workers out the door.

One thing that the technology industry did well was pre-emptively make the staff and budget cuts. Though some may have cut a bit more than they needed to, many firms were able to ultimately save jobs and preserve the health of the company by making cuts early in the crisis.

Going forward, things look to be picking up a bit. The bleeding is starting to slow at the hardest-hit firms and the rise in cloud computing and hosted services is giving some hope that the tech market will pick up again and there will be new jobs to be had.

Iain Thomson: There has been a lot of blood on the floor this year and a lot of people have lost their jobs. In some cases this was necessary, in others it was definitely not.

The IT sector was particularly quick to start cutting jobs and scaling back production. On one level this was a good thing as it allowed companies to be more flexible. However, some companies (HP, I'm looking at you) have cut to the bone and severely damaged morale within their own companies. Nothing destroys team spirit faster than seeing your friends being told that they are no longer required even when the company is showing profit.

It looks as if the cuts still haven't finished. A recession is the best time to reduce your headcount because there is an easy excuse, and companies know that staff will work all the harder to keep their jobs. But there is a feedback loop that some in management are missing.

People can only do so much and in an understaffed department the first people who leave will be those with good skills who are in demand. Squeeze the workforce too hard and you end up in the same position as Apple was in the mid-1990s – with the smart people leaving and the dullards left clinging to jobs because they had nowhere else to go.