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Deepak Gupta markTechnology Rewired

Cross-category timeline

How software got here, one milestone at a time

158 dated milestones from 8 categories, each sourced on the page it comes from. Filter by era to see the same pattern repeat: a decade of SaaS, a few years of copilots, then agents in under two.

158 milestones

1980

  1. WordStar MailMerge brings mail merge to microcomputerssource

    On-prem · Customer Onboarding Email

1990

  1. Remedy Corporation founded in Mountain Viewsource

    On-prem · Help Desk and Ticketing

1991

  1. Remedy ships the Action Request Systemsource

    On-prem · Help Desk and Ticketing

1992

  1. Intuit releases QuickBooks for DOSsource

    On-prem · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  2. SAP launches R/3, the client-server ERP that ran AP for large enterprisessource

    On-prem · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

1994

  1. Check Point ships FireWall-1, the first commercial stateful firewallsource

    On-prem · Firewall and Network Security

1995

  1. Roving Software, later Constant Contact, is founded to sell email newsletters to small businessessource

    On-prem · Customer Onboarding Email

1996

  1. Microsoft introduces IntelliSense in Visual Basic 5.0source

    On-prem · Coding Assistants and IDEs

1997

  1. Microsoft ships Visual Studio 97source

    On-prem · Coding Assistants and IDEs

1998

  1. NetLedger, later NetSuite, is founded to run accounting in the browsersource

    On-prem · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

1999

  1. NetSaint, the project that became Nagios, ships its first releasesource

    On-prem · Incident Management and On-Call

2000

  1. Active Directory ships with Windows 2000 Serversource

    On-prem · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  2. ExactTarget is founded in Indianapolis as a subscription email marketing servicesource

    On-prem · Customer Onboarding Email

2001

  1. Mailchimp launches as a hosted email servicesource

    SaaS and cloud · Customer Onboarding Email

  2. SpamAssassin first released by Justin Masonsource

    On-prem · Email Security

  3. Eclipse 1.0 released as open sourcesource

    On-prem · Coding Assistants and IDEs

2002

  1. BMC Software buys Remedy from bankrupt Peregrine Systemssource

    On-prem · Help Desk and Ticketing

  2. NetSaint is renamed Nagiossource

    On-prem · Incident Management and On-Call

  3. Sarbanes-Oxley Act signed, making internal control reporting mandatory for US public companiessource

    On-prem · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  4. SAML 1.0 adopted as an OASIS standardsource

    On-prem · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

2003

  1. Google starts its Site Reliability Engineering team under Ben Treynor Slosssource

    On-prem · Incident Management and On-Call

2004

  1. CAN-SPAM Act takes effect in the United Statessource

    SaaS and cloud · Customer Onboarding Email

  2. PCI DSS 1.0 released by the card brandssource

    On-prem · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

2005

  1. Gartner analysts coin the term SIEMsource

    On-prem · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  2. SAML 2.0 becomes an OASIS standardsource

    On-prem · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  3. Cisco launches the ASA 5500 to replace PIXsource

    On-prem · Firewall and Network Security

2006

  1. Bill.com is founded as Cashboard by René Lacertesource

    SaaS and cloud · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  2. SPF published as experimental RFC 4408source

    On-prem · Email Security

2007

  1. Palo Alto Networks releases its first next-generation firewallsource

    SaaS and cloud · Firewall and Network Security

  2. Zendesk launches its browser-based help desksource

    SaaS and cloud · Help Desk and Ticketing

  3. Cisco agrees to acquire IronPort for $830 millionsource

    On-prem · Email Security

  4. Google agrees to buy Postini for $625 millionsource

    SaaS and cloud · Email Security

2008

  1. The Peppol e-procurement project starts under the EU Competitiveness and Innovation Programmesource

    SaaS and cloud · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  2. Stack Overflow launchessource

    SaaS and cloud · Coding Assistants and IDEs

2009

  1. Okta founded (as SaaSure)source

    SaaS and cloud · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  2. PagerDuty is foundedsource

    SaaS and cloud · Incident Management and On-Call

2010

  1. Freshdesk founded in Chennai, later renamed Freshworkssource

    SaaS and cloud · Help Desk and Ticketing

  2. EMC agrees to acquire Archer Technologies and folds it into RSAsource

    On-prem · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  3. Forrester publishes the zero trust modelsource

    SaaS and cloud · Firewall and Network Security

  4. HP closes its $1.5 billion ArcSight acquisitionsource

    On-prem · SIEM and SOC Platforms

2011

  1. SSAE 16 takes effect and AICPA SOC 2 reports replace SAS 70 for service providerssource

    On-prem · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  2. IBM completes Q1 Labs acquisition and builds its security division on QRadarsource

    On-prem · SIEM and SOC Platforms

2012

  1. OAuth 2.0 published as RFC 6749source

    SaaS and cloud · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

2013

  1. Salesforce completes its acquisition of ExactTargetsource

    SaaS and cloud · Customer Onboarding Email

  2. Splunk Cloud becomes generally availablesource

    SaaS and cloud · SIEM and SOC Platforms

2014

  1. Zendesk goes public on the NYSEsource

    SaaS and cloud · Help Desk and Ticketing

  2. OpenID Connect Core 1.0 finalizedsource

    SaaS and cloud · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  3. Google publishes BeyondCorpsource

    SaaS and cloud · Firewall and Network Security

2015

  1. DMARC published as RFC 7489source

    SaaS and cloud · Email Security

  2. Microsoft announces Exchange Online Advanced Threat Protectionsource

    SaaS and cloud · Email Security

  3. Microsoft announces Visual Studio Code at Buildsource

    SaaS and cloud · Coding Assistants and IDEs

2016

  1. Google's Site Reliability Engineering book is publishedsource

    SaaS and cloud · Incident Management and On-Call

  2. Atlassian acquires Statuspagesource

    SaaS and cloud · Incident Management and On-Call

  3. Oracle completes its acquisition of NetSuite for about $9.3 billionsource

    SaaS and cloud · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

2017

  1. Zendesk introduces Answer Bot inside Guidesource

    AI-assisted · Help Desk and Ticketing

2018

  1. Vanta founded to automate SOC 2 evidence collectionsource

    SaaS and cloud · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  2. Splunk closes its Phantom SOAR acquisitionsource

    SaaS and cloud · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  3. GDPR applies across the EU, making consent part of every signup flowsource

    SaaS and cloud · Customer Onboarding Email

  4. Microsoft agrees to acquire GitHub for $7.5 billionsource

    SaaS and cloud · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  5. Splunk agrees to acquire VictorOps for about $120 millionsource

    SaaS and cloud · Incident Management and On-Call

  6. Atlassian agrees to acquire Opsgenie and launches Jira Opssource

    SaaS and cloud · Incident Management and On-Call

  7. Intercom ships Answer Botsource

    AI-assisted · Help Desk and Ticketing

2019

  1. Gartner coins SASEsource

    SaaS and cloud · Firewall and Network Security

  2. Chronicle launches Backstory, a cloud security telemetry platformsource

    SaaS and cloud · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  3. WebAuthn Level 1 becomes a W3C Recommendationsource

    SaaS and cloud · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  4. PagerDuty lists on the New York Stock Exchangesource

    AI-assisted · Incident Management and On-Call

  5. Azure Sentinel becomes generally availablesource

    SaaS and cloud · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  6. Bill.com lists on the NYSE under the ticker BILLsource

    SaaS and cloud · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

2020

  1. Drata founded around continuous SOC 2 monitoringsourcebeing verified

    SaaS and cloud · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  2. Intercom launches Resolution Botsource

    AI-assisted · Help Desk and Ticketing

  3. Tipalti introduces Tipalti Pi, AI for accounts payablesource

    AI-assisted · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  4. NIST publishes SP 800-207 Zero Trust Architecturesource

    AI-assisted · Firewall and Network Security

2021

  1. Okta completes $6.5 billion Auth0 acquisitionsource

    AI-assisted · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  2. GitHub Copilot technical preview announcedsource

    AI-assisted · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  3. Thoma Bravo completes $12.3 billion Proofpoint acquisitionsource

    AI-assisted · Email Security

  4. Apple ships Mail Privacy Protection with iOS 15, breaking open trackingsource

    AI-assisted · Customer Onboarding Email

2022

  1. Gartner names ITDR a top security trendsourcebeing verified

    AI-assisted · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  2. Apple, Google and Microsoft commit to passkeyssource

    AI-assisted · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  3. Permira completes $5.8 billion Mimecast acquisitionsource

    AI-assisted · Email Security

  4. GitHub Copilot becomes generally availablesource

    AI-assisted · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  5. OpenAI releases ChatGPTsource

    AI-assisted · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  6. Zendesk taken private in a $10.2 billion dealsource

    AI-assisted · Help Desk and Ticketing

2023

  1. Thoma Bravo completes its roughly $8 billion acquisition of Coupasource

    AI-assisted · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  2. Intercom launches Fin on GPT-4source

    Agentic · Help Desk and Ticketing

  3. Microsoft announces Security Copilotsource

    AI-assisted · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  4. CrowdStrike introduces Charlotte AIsource

    AI-assisted · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  5. Secureframe launches Comply AI for remediationsource

    AI-assisted · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  6. Azure AD renamed Microsoft Entra IDsource

    AI-assisted · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  7. Dell Technologies completes its acquisition of Moogsoftsource

    AI-assisted · Incident Management and On-Call

  8. Intuit Mailchimp launches Intuit Assist for generative email contentsource

    AI-assisted · Customer Onboarding Email

  9. Google announces bulk sender authentication rules for Gmailsource

    AI-assisted · Email Security

  10. ISO/IEC 42001, the AI management system standard, is publishedsource

    AI-assisted · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

2024

  1. FBI IC3 records $2.77 billion in business email compromise lossessource

    AI-assisted · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  2. CISA issues Emergency Directive 24-01 on Ivanti Connect Securesource

    AI-assisted · Firewall and Network Security

  3. Gmail starts enforcing authentication and one-click unsubscribe for bulk senderssource

    Agentic · Customer Onboarding Email

  4. Cisco completes its acquisition of Splunksource

    AI-assisted · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  5. Cognition introduces Devin as an AI software engineersource

    AI-assisted · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  6. PAN-OS GlobalProtect CVE-2024-3400 exploited as a zero day; Cisco unveils Hypershieldsource

    AI-assisted · Firewall and Network Security

  7. Abnormal launches AI Security Mailbox for autonomous report triagesource

    Agentic · Email Security

  8. Palo Alto Networks launches Strata Copilot powered by Precision AIsource

    AI-assisted · Firewall and Network Security

  9. EU AI Act enters into forcesource

    AI-assisted · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  10. Zendesk switches AI agents to outcome-based pricingsource

    Agentic · Help Desk and Ticketing

  11. HubSpot launches Breeze with four Breeze Agents at INBOUND 2024source

    Agentic · Customer Onboarding Email

  12. Palo Alto Networks closes acquisition of IBM QRadar SaaS assetssource

    AI-assisted · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  13. Salesforce makes Agentforce Service Agent generally availablesource

    Agentic · Help Desk and Ticketing

2025

  1. Anthropic previews Claude Code with Claude 3.7 Sonnetsource

    Agentic · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  2. CrowdStrike makes Charlotte AI Detection Triage generally availablesource

    Agentic · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  3. Drata agrees to acquire trust center vendor SafeBasesource

    Agentic · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  4. EU Council adopts VAT in the Digital Age, setting mandatory intra-EU e-invoicing for 2030source

    Agentic · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  5. Gartner predicts agentic AI will resolve 80% of common service issues by 2029source

    Next 5 years · Help Desk and Ticketing

  6. MCP specification adds OAuth 2.1 based authorizationsource

    Agentic · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  7. Microsoft announces Security Copilot agents, including the Phishing Triage Agentsource

    Agentic · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  8. Microsoft announces Security Copilot Phishing Triage Agentsource

    Agentic · Email Security

  9. Conveyor introduces Sue, an AI agent for customer security reviewssource

    Agentic · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  10. Sublime releases Autonomous Security Analyst (ASA)sourcebeing verified

    Agentic · Email Security

  11. Microsoft announces Entra Agent ID in previewsource

    Agentic · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  12. OpenAI launches Codex cloud agent as a research previewsource

    Agentic · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  13. Atlassian stops selling Opsgeniesource

    Agentic · Incident Management and On-Call

  14. Salesforce makes Marketing Cloud Next and Agentforce Campaign Creation generally availablesource

    Agentic · Customer Onboarding Email

  15. Traversal launches its AI SRE with a $48 million seed and Series Asource

    Agentic · Incident Management and On-Call

  16. Vanta launches the Vanta AI Agentsource

    Agentic · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  17. Cognition agrees to acquire Windsurf after Google hires its founderssource

    Agentic · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  18. incident.io opens early access to its AI SREsource

    Agentic · Incident Management and On-Call

  19. Cisco announces a Splunk Triage Agent slated for 2026source

    Next 5 years · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  20. GitHub Copilot coding agent becomes generally availablesource

    Agentic · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  21. Proofpoint announces Satori Agents, including an Abuse Mailbox Agentsource

    Agentic · Email Security

  22. Sublime announces Autonomous Detection Engineer (ADÉ)source

    Agentic · Email Security

  23. Tipalti relaunches Tipalti AI around agentssource

    Agentic · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  24. BILL launches its W-9 Agent and Reconciliation Agentsource

    Agentic · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  25. PagerDuty SRE Agent becomes generally availablesource

    Agentic · Incident Management and On-Call

  26. Palo Alto Networks launches Cortex AgentiX as the successor to XSOARsource

    Agentic · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  27. Palo Alto Networks launches Cortex AgentiX with a Network Security Agentsource

    Agentic · Firewall and Network Security

  28. Ramp launches Agents for AP for coding, approvals and paymentsource

    Agentic · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  29. Auth0 for AI Agents reaches general availabilitysource

    Agentic · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  30. Datadog launches Bits AI SREsource

    Agentic · Incident Management and On-Call

2026

  1. Freshworks closes its acquisition of FireHydrantsource

    Agentic · Incident Management and On-Call

  2. Gmail launches AI Inbox and AI Overviews powered by Geminisource

    Next 5 years · Customer Onboarding Email

  3. Basware announces a Supplier Agent and AP Pro Agent behind autonomy gatessource

    Agentic · Invoicing and Accounts Payable

  4. Palo Alto Networks completes CyberArk acquisitionsource

    Agentic · Identity and Access Management (IAM and CIAM)

  5. Palo Alto Networks completes its $25 billion CyberArk acquisitionsource

    Agentic · SIEM and SOC Platforms

  6. Palo Alto Networks completes its CyberArk acquisitionsource

    Agentic · Firewall and Network Security

  7. AWS DevOps Agent becomes generally availablesource

    Agentic · Incident Management and On-Call

  8. Vanta, Drata and Sprinto launch agentic compliance and trust workflowssource

    Agentic · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  9. Zendesk completes its acquisition of Forethoughtsource

    Agentic · Help Desk and Ticketing

  10. Customer.io ships its AI Agent, LLM Actions and Goalssource

    Agentic · Customer Onboarding Email

  11. Check Point launches Agentic Network Security Orchestrationsource

    Agentic · Firewall and Network Security

  12. DMARC moves to the IETF Standards Track as RFC 9989source

    Agentic · Email Security

  13. EU lawmakers reach provisional deal to delay high-risk AI Act obligations to December 2027source

    Next 5 years · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

  14. Cognition renames Windsurf as Devin Desktopsource

    Agentic · Coding Assistants and IDEs

  15. Hightouch launches Lifecycle Studio for agent-built cross-channel campaignssource

    Next 5 years · Customer Onboarding Email

  16. Cato launches Agentic Threat Preventionsource

    Agentic · Firewall and Network Security

  17. Gartner survey finds 87% of customers want access to a human when GenAI handles servicesource

    Next 5 years · Help Desk and Ticketing

  18. SpaceX completes its acquisition of Cursorsource

    Agentic · Coding Assistants and IDEs

2027

  1. Cylake, founded by Nir Zuk, targets commercial availability of its agentic platformsourcebeing verified

    Next 5 years · Firewall and Network Security

  2. Mimecast Agent Risk Center GA planned for Incydr customerssource

    Next 5 years · Email Security

  3. Opsgenie support ends and access shuts offsource

    Next 5 years · Incident Management and On-Call

  4. EU AI Act obligations for stand-alone high-risk systems scheduled to applybeing verified

    Next 5 years · SOC 2 and Compliance Automation

2030

  1. ViDA digital reporting and intra-EU e-invoicing take effectsource

    Next 5 years · Invoicing and Accounts Payable