April
Within a month the government was forced to abandon the broadband tax in order to push the Digital Economy bill through. Meanwhile Ofcom kept itself busy, this time forcing mobile phone companies to charge less for connecting to each other's networks.
There were some big mobile launches this month. Apple released the latest version of its mobile operating system - iOS4 - which included Apple's own mobile advertising platform, designed to ensure Google doesn't have things its own way in the mobile space.
Microsoft launched its long-awaited own-branded mobile phones - Kin. Apart from being a major strategy shift my the software giant, this launch was also significant for the cloud technology contained within the phones, that kept them constantly connected to Microsoft's remote servers for the purpose of backing up, networking and accessing services. The products themselves didn't last long, but we've yet to see what benefit WP7 gained from this experiment.
Other mobile news included the unveiling of MeeGo 1.0, and a big roadmap leak of Dell's mobile phone plans, which turned out to be pretty accurate. Nokia launched the N8, which was its big high-end smartphone initiative of the year. There was a rumour that Apple would buy ARM, which was unfounded, but HP did make a big mobile move by buying Palm.
A new force in technology retailing revealed itself in April. Best Buy is the dominant force in US tech retail and had been teasing its UK arrival for some time. The first store was opened in Essex and we took a TV crew over to have a butcher's. All in all it looked like a very credible challenge to DSG's dominance of this sector.
