We are at the point we reach every December where everyone who isn't already too busy compiling New Year's resolutions they will never keep is trying to make sense of the year that is rapidly coming to an end. And what a year 2005 turned out to be - complex, challenging, and at times frustrating but also always interesting.

Some would call it the year of the merger and acquisition -- though every year might qualify as that -- with Oracle and SAP leading the spending sprees. Just last week Systems management giant IBM snapped up event correlation software vendor Micromuse.Maybe this was the year that the business side of the organization finally began to view IT not merely as a cost center, but as a corporate differentiator. As a concept, BSM resonated with many companies as both IT and business managers looked for a way to tie business processes to the technology that supports them. ITIL best practices - if not the certification programs associated with it - started to gain more of a foothold in North America. And of course, open source technology opened up new options for many businesses looking for a way to save on hardware costs and licensing fees.

Of course, others would scowl, saying that more often than not, IT pros were on the defensive battling an assortment of worms, viruses, and other malware. Or system administrators were scrambling to come up with better backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity plans after events ranging from the terrorist attacks in London to Katrina to accidental power outages in Los Angeles brought home the need to be prepared.

Sure, 2005 was a rocky year at times but it was also one that offered plenty of optimism for the future, demonstrated by some pretty significant advances. After so many post bubble years of negativity, the IT sector is not just stable, it is growing. In my humble opinion, that return to confidence is the best way to end a year.