The major fights between companies operating in the digital world have been compiled by a leading technology news resource, with the browser wars of the late 1990s being of particular note.

Microsoft's "landmark anti-trust case" against Netscape is believed by Shaun Nichols of v3.co.uk to be the most major battle ever seen in the history of modern technology, noting how Bill Gates' organisation bundled Internet Explorer for free with Windows.

This caused Netscape to file a lawsuit against the organisation, with the now-defunct company claiming that Microsoft was muscling its way into the market by using Windows as leverage.

Still, Microsoft continues to this day and works with multiple small businesses in IT, though all is not as straightforward as it may seem, he continued.

Mr Nichols added: "Netscape may not have won the browser war but it planted the seed that led to disaster for its rival.

"Ironically, Microsoft later found itself battling for browser supremacy when the remnants of Netscape Navigator were turned over to the open-source world and used as the foundation for Mozilla's Firefox."

Chip providers Intel and AMD and their tussles over the last couple of decades got a second-place spot with v3.co.uk, while Commodore's gung-ho attitude against the rest of the market won third place.

This week, Russian competition regulators dropped their investigation into Microsoft's stopping of sales of XP to provide only Windows Vista to customers.

More than half of small businesses (53 per cent) believe that the most important benefit of outsourcing is guaranteed response times for IT support. London-based Connect conducted the research in 2007.