The industry registered its highest growth ever, but some segments saw negative movement. It was a time for huge numbers, but there was also cause for gloom, as dot-coms and the B2C space collapsed. It was a dream year, but ended with a tinge of despair...

• AFTER THE PARTY: A Mixed Bag of Tricks
  

• PCs AND DESKTOPS: A New Year, a New King
  Even as the desktop phenomenon dimmed in other parts of the world, the Indian sky was lit up nice and bright. Compaq was quick to see the lure and went all out, upstaging even HCL

• SERVERS AND WORKSTATIONS: Sweet Fruit, Lovely Weather
  Sun Microsystems enjoyed the picnic the most, as it merrily pushed aside other players to grab the largest slices of the pie. Nobody seemed to be complaining though—there were enough eats for everyone

• PERIPHERALS: Price-cuts Stunt Growth
  Top vendors kept lowering prices regularly to ward off, even kill the competition in certain categories. The inevitable happened—though volumes scaled up, revenues crashed

• Packaged Software: Simplify, Integrate and Step Around the Dot-com Puddle
  Look beyond the slowdown. The dot-com crash apart, it has been a good year for packaged software—growth was at 37%, Indian companies launched 92 products and upgrades, and MNCs another 152

• Networking: Blowing Hot, Blowing Cold
  ISP activity slowed down, corporates turned cautious, but the banking and finance sector stuck to ambitious ramp-up plans. Industry bemoaned the slowdown, but networking still notched up 50%-plus growth

• Internet: Can Value-adds Revive the Boom?
  Plunging Net access rates and deregulation by the government led to a rush in the ISP market… but few succeeded when it came to bottomlines. Now, the buzzword is value-adds, as other revenue sources dry up

• SERVICES: Skilled Strokes, Superior Score
  Network integrators led the growth chart as they handled big orders from banks, financial institutions and corporates.
  Internet data centers and the CRM space ushered in new business opportunities

• TRAINING AND EDUCATION: Good Times, Bad Times
  Some flourished, some stuttered, some others disappeared overnight… But while most of the sector cried slowdown, the bigger players quietly consolidated their businesses and emerged stronger

• SOFTWARE EXPORTS: A Downpour.... then, a Drizzle
  Indian companies stood strong and firm, ready to service the gush of orders from abroad, and kept growing. And that growth was so fast that it overshadowed the dull phase that followed

• HR Models: From Maturity to Strength
  As Indian software companies confronted problems of quality, time and profits management, models like CMM and PCMM got increasingly crucial

• STORAGE: Stacking up the Terabytes
  The storage market has never seen better days. DAS is on its way out, and SAN and NAS are being embraced by organizations teetering on the edge of a data explosion

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