Nancy Weil

As we gaze toward the vista of 2007 (pun intended) we find our e-mail inbox inundated with IT predictions for the new year from analysts, vendors and consultants. To those predictions we add our own prognostications. Here is our forecast for the top IT trends in the year ahead.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) agreed to a $16.63 (US$14.5) million settlement in the California civil lawsuit related to the company's spying scandal.

Google Inc. has laid speculation to rest -- it is buying YouTube Inc. for US$1.65 (Cdn$1.87b) billion in a stock transaction.

Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) board members and journalists were under physical surveillance by investigators trying to find out who was providing information to reporters, and private investigators tried to put tracking software on a journalist's computer to keep tabs on e-mail, according to a New York Times report.

AOL LLC will slash up to 5,000 jobs worldwide, or just over a quarter of its workforce, as the struggling unit of Time Warner Inc. restructures in an effort to bring in more revenue.

Microsoft Corp. has acquired "health intelligence" software that pulls patient data from various sources into one location and allows instant access to health records.

The U.S. government will present evidence at the upcoming trial of Sanjay Kumar that the former chief executive officer of CA Inc. erased from his laptop computer potential evidence related to the accounting fraud case against him and the company, according to a court document filed earlier this month.

Google Inc. attorneys will square off against the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) at a Feb. 27 hearing over the issue of providing the government with information about searches for pornography on the company's site.n