It is more of bad news that dominates the top ten tech stories for the year 2008, which includes Microsoft's failed takeover bid for Yahoo, failure of Vista operating system and rumours about death of Apple chief Steve Jobs, as per a list compiled by the Forbes magazine.
Other top technology stories that grabbed the media space during the year included successful launch of iPhone, Google jumping into wireless space, video games maker Electronic Arts' failed Take-Two bid, Blu-ray defeating HD-DVD in digital format war, Sun Microsystems falling prey to financial crisis, Spore's Lackluster Bloom and Netbooks and Smart Phone disruptions.
"The biggest tech story of the year was a deal that wasn't meant to be: Microsoft's failed bid for Yahoo!," Forbes said in a report, adding that "Yahoo! squirmed for months to get out of Microsoft's bear hug, using a poison-pill strategy and even experimenting with an ill-fated partnership with Google, its biggest rival, to prevent the deal."
Another major story that hogged the headlines was rumours about Apple founder and chief executive Steve Jobs' death.
"Although Jobs has mysteriously announced that he won't appear at Macworld this coming January, rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated--by news sources," the magazine said.
The magazine also named the launch of Apple in June with a smaller price tag among the top ten tech stories of 2008. The iPhone, originally an expensive wonder toy for elite technophiles, became--by some counts--the most widely-used cellphone model in the world, it said.
Although, Microsoft made headlines with its frustrating Yahoo misadventure but the real story for the company in 2008 may have been the colossal failure of Windows Vista, Forbes said.
"Users decried the OS' slow speed and bugs. Many large corporate customers held on to Windows XP or even switched back to the older operating system," the magazine said in a report.
Further, Forbes noted Google's entry into the wireless space in the year.
Though the search giant was not able to win the wireless spectrum auction that began in February, it managed to achieve its real goal of lobbying the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to open up its 700-megahertz frequency, a move that could allow users to access any wireless application on any network.
The company also launched the G1, the first phone to use Google's Android operating system, and perhaps the only one capable of rivalling the iPhone's buzzing cloud of media hype, the magazine said.
Further, other bigger stories of the year was Blu-ray defeated Toshiba's HD-DVD format, Sun Microsystems was badly damaged due to global financial crisis. The company witnessed its share prices tumbled by 75 per cent and yet no acquirers emerged to swallow or carve it.
