How A $4 Trillion Tech Market Was Radically Changed In 2014
Microsoft named its third-ever CEO, long-time exec Satya Nadella, from Microsoft's cloud business.
Even as Steve Ballmer became Microsoft's largest stockholder, he resigned from Microsoft's board and left tech altogether. He bought the L.A. Clippers basketball team.
Look back: Ballmer Buys The LA Clippers For $2 Billion
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison also gave up the CEO role to become CTO and Executive Chairman.
Looking back: LARRY ELLISON STEPPING DOWN AS ORACLE CEO
Ellison was a co-founder and the company's only CEO, holding the job for 37 years. Everyone thought he would be CEO until he died.
HP announced some radical new technology that will challenge all of its rivals: 'The Machine'" a mouse-less computer called 'Sprout'; and a 3D printer.
After HP increased layoffs to 55,000 and a merger with EMC reportedly fell through, HP CEO Meg Whitman announces HP would split itself in two.
In fact, break-up mania hit the tech industry with eBay spinning off PayPal ...
... and Symantec's new CEO Michael Brown cleaving Symantec into two.
Apple signed a huge partnership deal with IBM to help sell more iPads and custom apps to the enterprise
IBM also signed deals with Twitter and SAP, sold a server unit, and its chip business, spent billions on the cloud ...
but 2014 wasn't a great year for IBM. With revenue slipping, it abandoned its big "Roadmap 2015" promise to return $20 EPS by 2015.
Cisco announced a controversial but gutsy plan to build $1 billion cloud, too.
Look back: Analyst: Cisco's New $1 Billion Cloud Computing Plan Is Ingenious But Risky
But Cisco also had a fourth year of layoffs and a huge reorg of its engineering teams ...
... was hit by an unlikely but dangerous new competitor: Facebook ...
Look back: Facebook Just Fired A Huge Shot At Cisco
... and sued Arista Networks, a hated rival formed by many ex-Cisco execs ...
Hackers used the cloud to have a huge year, too. They nabbed nude celebrity photos from their iPhones via iCloud ...
And hackers grabbed credit cards from Home Depot and other retailers much like the Target hack in late 2013 ...
Not to mention the hack on Sony, which caused 'The Interview' to be released online not just in theaters.
Meanwhile, a little startup called Docker suddenly became the most important company.
And investors devoured the first 'Hadoop' IPO, Hortonworks. Hadoop is a new kind of big data database, the Oracle of tomorrow.
Look back: Yahoo Just Made $68 Million In 2 Days
But cloud storage darling Box didn't go public. It's running away from the cloud industry's "race to zero" price war.
And Zenefits, a cloud HR software startup with a radical new business model, became the new Valley darling..
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