If anything 2002 has been characterised by the multibillion-dollar soap opera of multiple and dramatic corporate collapses.

While global security continued to be a theme throughout the year as the US licked its wounds, the business community tried its best to convey a spirit of business as usual against some pretty hefty odds. Any economist will tell you that business uncertainty is the ultimate enemy of a healthy corporate sector, and with public cynicism at an all time high, war looming, oil prices wavering, stock exchanges globally falling into hibernation, 2002 became the year of living uncertainly.

January

ZDNet Australia began the year embroiled in controversy as a Telstra employee was caught red handed tampering with an online news poll. A week later, and the telco giant tried to distance itself from the actions of employees and the saga dragged into February. Sex and the Internet was also in the news as a University of Western Sydney survey found a third of Internet users said they believed sex talk over work email was tolerable.

February

2002 saw an increasing interest in the operating systems debate deepen as a Microsoft vrs Open Source eclipsed all other stories. Meanwhile deep beneath the Pacific Ocean the Telstra Internet cable was in trouble. A week after the troubles first appeared Telstra confirmed the SEA-ME-WE3, a principal data artery for carrying Internet traffic out of the country, was experiencing a shunt fault. As Internet customers across the country made-do with slow connections, Telstra managed to re-route the traffic while the problem was repaired.

March

Early in the month Hughes Internet hit the headlines, as a colourful Queensland-based entrepreneur, passing himself off as Dr Ronald Gander began advertising a Hughes-branded wireless broadband offering in the Brisbane Courier Mail. Hughes' US operations immediately moved to distance itself from Gander who disappeared back into the IT woodwork claiming persecution. In other news a mischievous hacker managed to redirect traffic destined for www.whitepages.com.au to a pornography portal featuring senior citizens.

April

As the days got shorter, and the nights chillier competition in the games console hit fever pitch, as Microsoft slashed its X-box pricing by more than a third. Australia's thirst for Internet speed continued to grow apace with a story on a new broadband-in-a-box offering attracting second most traffic for the month.

May

Launched amid much fanfare the music industry's high-tech copy proof disks were quickly and easily foiled with one fell swipe of a felt-tipped marker. In other news Compaq Australia found itself embroiled in controversy after an Internet publishing oversight saw it offering 1 cent laptops. While the company claimed the glitch had only affected 200 or so units, but anecdotal evidence pointed to a much larger problem for the company. In a world first the Australia legal system became the first country to prosecute an action on behalf of spam.

June

By mid year ZDNet's own Josh Mehlman was causing a kerfuffle claiming that both sides of the Linux vs Microsoft polemic were want to fill the industry with fear, uncertainty and doubt. Also hitting to top of the traffic pole in June was a story regarding a new wireless broadband network currently being installed in Sydney.

July

Microsoft's foray into the games console market was beginning to come unstuck by mid-year, as the vendor became snagged on Australia's sluggish broadband rollout. Shying away from providing much information on local sales, Microsoft began to look for alternatives to stimulate sales. Also on the broadband front Telstra ADSL customers throughout the eastern states found their data flow seriously curtailed due to systemic glitches.

August

In the latter half of the year corporate applications for Instant messenger technology came increasingly under the spotlight, as it was revealed the popular Trillian application was highly vulnerable to hack attacks. With broadband remaining in the news Optus stayed mum over analysts' speculations that the company was attempting to distance itself from domestic broadband provision.

September

Almost 12 months into its first year on the market, Windows XP was starting to look a little the worse for wear, and in September an Australian researcher found a bug which threatened to empty out entire directories simply by clicking on a hyperlink. Also topping the polls was an admission by the South Australian police that they were considering outsourcing their computer crime investigation, in an attempt to keep abreast with advances in Internet based crime.

October

While 2002 was an improvement on 2001 when it came to tech job layoffs, EDS tried to sneak in the shears by the end of the year, as a high-level source told ZDNet Australia there would be job cuts of up to 15 percent across the globe. When the official announcement came it set the cuts at a much lower rate over successive quarters - ultimately adding up to 15 percent. The distributive computing search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) also came under the spotlight, with a report that the program was running dangerously low on financial support.

November

As the year was drawing to a close another story regarding cheating on the SETI project broke traffic records at ZDNet Australia, as a team based in the Netherlands was accused of playing with its stats. Meanwhile a year of Java and .Net vying for supremacy saw analysts come out in support in neither, as it was revealed both had precipitated serious problems for early adopters.

December

In the final month of the year Australia again found itself leading the world in terms of Internet legislation in the Dow Jones & Company Inc vs Gutnick case. Taking advantage of Australia's onerous defamation laws, Gutnick successfully sued a Dow Jones Internet based publication for defamation. And finally, with worms and viruses never far from the headlines the second most trafficked story in December was one focussing on a new worm, which took advantage of some traditional methods to gain access to unwary email users inboxes. The virus offered a subject line of "Crazy Illegal Sex".

As we head into 2003 ZDNet Australia also wishes to thank all our readers for their support in a year which has seen our publication go from strength to strength. We wish you all a Happy New Year, and a safe, and prosperous, 2003.

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