A lot has happened in the technology world in the past year. So let’s take a minute to reflect on the defining moments of 2011 and where we stand now, as a local tech community with increasingly global impact.
This is by no means comprehensive, or even a summary of the most important stories of the year. It’s just a select few of the biggest highlights and lowlights, organized in spaghetti western fashion (cliché alert).
The Good: Oracle Buys Endeca
Some might argue this wasn’t necessarily “good” for the local tech scene, but Oracle’s $1B+ purchase of Cambridge, MA-based Endeca, the enterprise search and business intelligence firm, was one of the biggest deals of the year, and was kept under wraps pretty well. It will be interesting to watch whether Endeca’s technology and talent give Oracle a leg up in its competition with IBM, SAP, Microsoft, and Google. Endeca, which started in 1999, stands as a testament to the notion that billion-dollar tech companies can be built—and are being built—in Massachusetts. (See Acme Packet, Progress Software, Wayfair, and others on their way.)
Honorable mention: Carbonite, TripAdvisor, and Zipcar each went public with successful IPOs in 2011. That’s three more publicly traded tech companies in Boston that seem to be thriving in a tough market. Who will join them in 2012?
The Bad: RSA Gets Hacked
No one would argue this isn’t bad—and not just for local companies. In March, RSA Security reported a data breach involving its authentication products, which are widely used by big companies and government agencies. The Bedford, MA-based division of data storage giant EMC said it had
