Reviews (16)

This book is so-so
I'm always interested in what people write about Oracle, being an international Oracle employee for almost 5 years now. The good thing with this book is that the author really tries to give beef to the title - how can others take profit from Oracle's success methods and which are these anyways. It's not easy to analyze and find a structure, but the author solves this quite well. Sometimes though the facts seem to be stretched and inaccurate (see other comments on wrong project, customer etc.) and also my interest wasn't holding up until the end. I was skimming through the last 80 pages. For an Oracle outsider who wants to know what's going on inside surely a good read, except the various little inaccuracies. The minority runs around in suite & tie, we all know how developers usually dress in most companies of Silicon Valley. Other than that: easy & informative

Too superficial
I picked this book up a couple of years ago and when I read it then, I thought it was too unreal, too fictitious. Everything the author wrote about Oracle was that Oracle is the paradise and there is not a thing wrong about Oracle.

I read it again a month back and thinking it would changed my mind. It didn't. In fact, it made it even worse. I have been with several high profile Silicon Valley tech companies and despite the rosy outlook of these companies (especially during the dot-com days), it was not all heaven. The author failed miserably to inject realism into Oracle machinery. I would definitely give this book a thumbs down.

Insight & Frosting
Much of this work seems like a light and fluffy tribute to Oracle, without looking very hard at what might be ethical issues with the business practices described. If, however, you are negotiating a contract with Oracle, some of the basic hardball tactics described in the book will prepare you for the session and help to educate any starry eyed rookie team members regarding what they are up against when playing in the big leagues.

dead trees
Published in 2000, this book was in many respects already out of date. By now, more is. Much of what remains current is represented here by truisms and by gee-whiz exclamations, as for instance Read's goggling at Oracle's fitness center and cafeterias. He appears to subscribe to, and he promotes, a very unreflective adherence to Oracle business practices.

However, one must salute Read's marketing abilities, without which his book was unlikely to interest even so obscure a publisher as Adams Media Corporation. On the other hand, the book is astonishingly ill-written--Read is reported to have a degree from Harvard, but I'm waiting to see it--and his publisher evidently never even thought of editing his annoying prose.

Stay away from this book. By contrast, _The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison_ is a gem.

This is not a "business advice" book
This is an interesting, but distorted view of Oracle. Any company that has to deal with Oracle can tell you that Oracle has many more challenges than this book points out. It is not a "how to run a business" book as much as "hey, we successed in spite of our errors". Although they were successful due a lot of hard work, they made many more mistakes than were indicated in this book. The book is worth reading if your company is using Oracle products. In understanding the hands-on control from Larry Ellison, the dominance that Larry plays in the running of the corporation and how his tempermental style effects their business decisions, Oracle's selling style, and the culture of the company, it will help you make better decisions in how to deal with the company. ... Read more

Book Description

Apple Computer was once a shining example of the American success story. Having launched the personal computer revolution in 1977 with the first all-purpose desktop PC, Apple became the darling of the national business press and Wall Street. Yet by 1995, the company's change-the-world idealism had all but disappeared in a bitter internal struggle between warring camps. Raging internal mistakes, petty infighting, and gross mismanagement became Apple's hallmark, and today the company clings to a mere 3.7 percent share of the market it helped to create. Apple is the spellbinding account of what really went on behind closed doors, revealing the forces that dismantled this once great icon of American business. ... Read more

Reviews (58)

An unfortunately poorly told tale of a fantastic journey.
I, personally, could not stop reading this book, despite the mind-numbing repitition and poor metaphors. It is somewhat saved because (I understand?) it is fairly accurate. What compelled me the most about this book was not the combination of bad decisions and bad luck, with some bad economics thrown in, that made the downfall of the company that invented the personal computer equally as fast as its rise. What I found the most compelling was the obvious pride of the fantastically intelligent think-factory that was Apple. Read between the lines, at it is obvious that Apple engineers had a genuine love for beautiful code: code that was thrown out at Apple is the code that Microsoft SELLS. Look especcially for the famous story of shaving the seconds off the startup of the mac 128K. The work was worth it, wasn't it? No matter how hard Carlton paints Apple as a failure of generals following different trails, he cannot hide the success and hope of the individuals who invented, reinvented, and most recently, fully made good on the promise of the personal computer.

Unbiased Account of one of the Biggest Business Tragedies
I found Carlton's book to be well-written, stimulating and unbiased. It seems that other reviewers feel that Carlton was flat wrong in his prediction that Apple will ultimately not succeed (he devotes only a few pages at the end to this). To these individuals, I suggest that you reread the book. Carlton did not say that Apple has always been a complete failure. His book was about how the company, which was YEARS ahead of others in terms of technology and design, lost its market share. His prediction is simply that Apple will most likely not thrive in the LONG-term.

To those who thought that Carlton's book was overly negative: What else could you call what happened to Apple? A success story? Of course not. Apple DID create an unbelievable company with brilliant design, technology and marketing. But the tragedy is that it chose to ride on its past successes without devising a strategic plan to maintain its lead in the ever-changing technology industry.

I suggest that anyone interested in learning how to manage a company over the long-haul read this book.

Jim Carlton Was Wrong
Useful history and inside looks, but reading his 1998 back-of-the-hand dismissal of Apple's chances of survival is pretty humorous nowadays. His opinion that Apple should have licensed earlier is similarly wrong-headed and lacking in any technical appreciation of the downsides of licensing (dilution of brand,difficult QA processes, cherry-picking, loss of platform homogenieity ).

He similarly doesn't understand the silliness of Apple developing an x86 MacOS in the early 90's, and again reveals his technical ineptitude by failing to pursue the ramifications of an Apple-brand x86 offering (ie a Mac with an x86 CPU) vs a software-only offering like Windows or NeXT's Yellow Box.

He also repeatedly blows the 5300 battery issue out of proportion.

But I think the weakest theme in the book is that an alternative platform with less than 10% "marketshare" is automatically doomed to failure. While there is a strong positive network effect for the 'standard' and a negative effect for the alternatives, in his near-hagiography of Gates & Co he simply missed the bigger picture that the lamosity of the Wintel platform's inherent legacy issues is and was a countervening force.

5-10% of the total market is sufficiently large for Apple, given a) it's the top 5-10% and b) Micros~1 continues to [stink] as it always has.

It's OK . . .
Jim Carlton's "Apple" is a fascinating account about the growth, the fall, the rebirth, and the slow decline of one of Silicon Valley's original PC pioneer. It provides an exhaustive account of the egos and problems within the top ranks that prevented Apple from being a great company. Again and again, Carlton shows how Apple blew opportunities to become a "standard" in the PC industry if it had licensed its technology, merged with a partner like IBM or Sun, or just had the competence to execute effectively and efficiently.

For the most part, I do agree with Carlton's account. However, one cannot help but feel after reading numerous accounts of Apple's "failures" or "lost opportunities" if Carlton is making too much out of Apple's strategy. Carlton also implicitly believes that becoming "the standard" could have been and should have been Apple's only goal. Naturally, like another reviewer, I got tired of reading Carlton's 20/20 hindsight version of history that harps on every failure as somehow contributing to the company's decline.

The book was also published around 1999, so while it does include a section on Job's return and Apple's introduction of the iMac, it naturally missed out on some of Apple's more recent accomplishments: the new TiBook, the iBook, OS X, the "digital hub" strategy, and the fact that Apple is sitting pretty these days as other Wintel box makers are seeing their companies disintegrate under brutal price wars and commoditization. Overall, Carlton's book provides a good history of the company, but its propensity to apply a 20/20 hindsight type of history that harps on every mistake the company made gets annoying after awhile.

Missed Opportunities
Carlton relates time after time after time (after time) how Apple rose to great heights of genius and creativity, and then threw opportunity away with both hands and ran the other direction. The title is descriptive of the downs (but the book also covers the ups) of this amazing company. One of the few critical and unbiased (mostly) looks at Apple. All Macintosh fans and Steve Jobsians should read this book to get the other side. I was actually going to interview with Apple until I read this story. ... Read more

Book Description

The corporate history of the largest and most successful provider of environmental management services in the world. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Leachate
A grossly self-serving corporate biography of one of the true dinosaurs of modern business. Jacobson's portrait of the origins of Waste Management is good reading, but rapidly degenerates into a pandering promotion of thebusiness genius of Dean Buntrock and Phil Rooney.The book needs anepilogue, as after it was published Waste Management began bleeding cashlike uncontrolled landfill leachate. The same management that Jacobsontalks so glowingly about are now part of the trash heap of businesshistory, but you would not know it from reading this book. ... Read more

Book Description

This excellent reference for anyone interested in the wondrously broad range of Coca-Cola collectibles is now in its newly revised fourth edition! This book is filled cover-to-cover with approximately 2,000 bright, color pictures of the most sought-after Coca-Cola products ever made, from advertisements, trays, and bottles to haberdashery, jewelry, and amazing one-of-a-kind novelties, all with updated prices reflecting today's market. From its earliest offerings to a modern-day selection, Coca-Cola is well represented by this definitive text, which includes many of the rarest pieces from within the Coca-Cola Company's own archives. A useful and gloriously beautiful book! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Essential Guide for Collectors of Coca-Cola
This book has updated values and includes the old as well as recent items. The sections on calendars, playing cards and blotters are excellent with sharp & detailed photos. Along with the Petretti book this is the most complete guide available on this topic and a great source for collectors. ... Read more

Book Description

With the PC's introduction, IBM stood poised to extend its dominance into the 21st century. Yet, through corporate hubris, inflexibility and an inability to understand the marketplace, IBM lost its place as a golden symbol of American corporate might.

Tracing IBM's every misstep, the author provides behind-the-scenes revelations and anecdotes about the computer industry. The result is one of the most instructive and important business stories of our time.

"Carroll (a reporter for the WSJ) creates a you-are-there feel....Looks long and hard at the texture of decline inside the greatest corporation in the world." (The New York Times) ... Read more

Reviews (7)

The Minuet of the Dinosaurs
This very readable book is the model that Gerstner should have followed. Elephants can do heavy towing, or push aside obstacles; they can't pirouette en pointe. This book is the viewpoint of IBM by an outside journalist. It lacks a table of contents. The book describes the problems, it does not tell when or why it originated.

Page 20 says IBM developed "a lush bureaucracy that prided itself on having a higher ratio of managers per employee than any other business around." Is this what they teach in business school? IBM's chairmen came from the sales force; if you can't sell it, there's no point in making it. The IBM PC was created from off-the-shelf parts so it could be quickly marketed; pre-defined interfaces too! Page 24 tells how Microsoft did an operating system: they licensed QDOS (a replica of CP/M), then bought it. It eventually made Gates the richest man in America.

Page 27 tells of the management problem in creating software. Architects spent months producing detailed designs for software. Then masses of programmers had a hard time deciphering the hundreds of pages of specifications. More time was spent in communicating than actually writing code! Isn't this a recipe for a project to be over budget and behind schedule? Estridge's habit of shunning meetings, not returning phone call, and ignoring unwanted advice could set an example of a well-ordered project manager who concentrates on the mission, not the housekeeping. Page 37 explains why standards for PCs began at birth.

Page 53 mentions the "fear of nuclear attack" as the reason for moving out of New York city. But other companies also moved out in the 1970s; the fear of a nuclear attack drained away after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Didn't IBM build a skyscraper in the 1980s only to sell it in the 1990s? Didn't AT&T do the same?

Page 87 tells how Gates got lucky when VisiCorp began to self-destruct. Those familiar with counter-intelligence operations may think of another reason (p.192). Page 97 says IBM never wanted to have too many people in one spot. Unstated here is the fear that nearly all could walk out to a new company (p.186). Page 101 tells that IBM used lines of code as a measure of programming; what did IBM use to measure its management? Microsoft rewrote IBM code to make it faster and smaller, then; how are they doing now? The last pages of Chapter 8 deal with the OS/2-Windows politics. There is no explanation as to why they didn't share the same application interface. Page 201 tells of developing a RISC chip; didn't CDC do this in the early 1960s? Page 208 describes the chip development problem in Burlington VT. Page 217 mentions the "golden screwdriver" and how quickly some machines were upgraded. Think ahead!

Pages 245-7 tell of the PS/1 project: crippled so it would not compete with PS/2. Would General Motors restrict the sale of Chevrolets to sell more Cadillacs? Page 281 suggests Microsoft moles reported on IBM's strategies. Pages 301-9 tell of the changes in Lexington under new owners. In political history, this is like a revolution that sweeps away the aristocracy and lets the farmers and merchants rise to power. Does the description of the IBM bureaucracy remind you of France before the Revolution? Will anyone write a book to cover the last ten years as well as this one does?

With IBM's bungling, how could Microsoft fail?
People who complain that this book is unfounded because IBM is growing and profitable forgets that over a decade ago, IBM was a stinker: the bottom had fallen out of the lucrative mainframe market, and IBM could not compete long-term in the rapidly growing PC/Workstation market. This book is a great lesson in how not to adapt to change.

Luckily, IBM has pulled itself out, but at what cost? Imagine if IBM had got the PC revolution right? There might not even be a Microsoft today and IBM could have retaken its position as THE corporate super-power.

Besides discussing poor management, I enjoyed the information and great anecdotes about IBM's relationship with Bill Gates and Microsoft. I cannot believe the number of opportunities IBM squandered to acquire, invest or eliminate Microsoft. It seems that IBM pratically pushed Gates to build Microsoft into the power it is today.

A fascinating read!
I have now read this book twice. Not only have I read the book, I remember this time period as my company worked closely with IBM. One of the other reviewers said, "An amusing book that attributes IBM's success to a couple of lucky business decisions followed by endless blunders. Carroll makes alot of assertions about IBM but provides few facts to back them up..." Obviously, this person either works for IBM or did not know what was going on at that time. What Carroll says is true. Especially if you had ANY ties with IBM during these years, you will find this book fascinating. I have referred back to it many times.

if you're in the computer industry, don't pass it up
This is a penetrating and often amusing look at the rise and fall of IBM. It's dated, much like any book about computers that was published about seven years ago is obviously expected to be.

If IBM is doing better now, this book might have had something to do with it. Things like corporate hymnals, the ponderous decisionmaking process, and the reasons for the failure of IBM's PS/2 line are all exposed in humiliating detail. As a former retail sales rep for an IBM dealer from 1988-1990, I can tell you that in that time frame the IBM I saw looked a lot like Carroll's portrayal (and completely turned me off about them). This book is worth a search.

Insightful and well Researched.
Paul Caroll's years of experience covering IBM and his expertise as a writer really shows in this riveting documentary of IBM. The only problem with the book is that it is out of date. IBM has turned its business around under its present management and is doing quite well. ... Read more

Book Description

In this candid behind-the-scenes look at one of the greatest corporate turnarounds of the decade, Verticle Takeoff offers lessons for any business in any industry facing the real world challenge of managing massive change successfullly. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Over the years, Robert Sobel (Dangerous Dreamers, For Want of a Nail, Coolidge) has discovered that you can learn as much from analyzing a business's failure as its success. In When Giants Stumble: Classic Business Blunders and How to Avoid Them, the Hofstra University business-history professor zeroes in on 15 devastating failures that either severely damaged companies or spelled their doom. "After all, medical people study diseases in order to learn how to keep people healthy. Why not apply the same logic to the study of business blunders?" For example, in a chapter on E.J. Korvette, Sobel explains how founder Eugene Ferkauf created a discount-marketing Goliath that tallied an astounding $1 million in sales when it opened in 1948--only to spiral into bankruptcy by 1980 due to poor hiring practices, undercapitalization, and ill-planned expansion. Other companies that come under Sobel's microscope include Osborne Computer, Montgomery Ward, Pan American World Airways, Schwinn, Pabst, and the NYSE. What was common to all of these companies was that their failure was preceded by great success, which should give many of today's movers and shakers plenty to think about. Recommended. --Howard Rothman ... Read more

Reviews (8)

Classic business but not conclusively told
I like business case studies like this book and while I enjoyed it, it did not "wow" me. The studies are clinically written and as a reviewer already stated, it really doesn't address the second part of the title, "how to avoid them". I didn't learn from the book but it was mildly interesting. I particularly like the Montgomery Ward story where you have to almost laugh at the companies stupidity. Read if you like the subject and have the time but don't expect a "bestseller".

Interesting cases, not well written
While the cases referenced in this book are interesting cases to study, reading each case was difficult because much of the information is repeated and extraneous information is added. The book could be condensed to 25% of its size easily with a big red pencil.

And how to avoid them?
An interesting history of some classic business failures. However the book does not really deliver on the second part of it's title, `and how to avoid them...'. It is true that it leaves you to draw your own conclusions, but I for one would have preferred some marketing analysis and some tips or rules that might have prevented these failures. Suitable primarily for business historians or others interested in this field.

Corporate Goliaths
How to explain "classic business blunders" by some of the world's most successful companies? How to avoid such blunders? Robert Sobel answers both questions in When Giants Stumble. Sobel is a highly esteemed business historian. In a separate chapter within When Giants Stumble, he examines each of these "giants" and the primary cause of their respective blunders:

Osborne Computer (ineptitude) E.J. Korvette (hubris)Kaiser-Frazer (ignorance) RCA (nepotism) W.R. Grace (nonstrategic expansion) Packard (downward brand extension) Schlitz and Pabst (cutting corners) James Ling (fighting the government) Drexel Burnham Lambert (isolation) The Penn Central (mismatch)Montgomery Ward (stopped clock) American Tobacco (standing pat)The New York Stock Exchange (narrow view) Schwinn (multiple blunders)

Robert Sobel's recent death denies all of us any additional contributions by him to a cohesive, comprehensive, and circumspect understanding of the business world. Those who read and learn from When Giants Stumble are forever in his debt.

A must read for any American business person or student
A great read for anyone who needs to learn important lessons about business in America. Those in business who do not know the history of business failure are destined to repeat it. I am an executive in a large company and it was interesting to note the patterns of business failure that might be present in my own company. I passed my copy of the book around. Robert Sobel made some interesting picks of business failures. Hindsight is 20-20, but Sobel takes you through the history in a nonjudgmental evenhanded fashion. Also, I appreciated the fact that Sobel does not cram his point of view down that the reader's throat, instead letting the reader come to his or her own conclusions. Too often, writers have hidden agendas that are obvious. From a reading of this book, I still do not know Sobel's ideological/political views, and I respect him more for this fact. ... Read more

Book Description

This corporate history of BASF offers a view of the functioning of an industrial organization that has managed to thrive and expand since 1865.Moreover, it reveals much about the reasons for the extraordinary economic dynamics of the German empire and the enormous expansion of the world economy before World War I.It permits the probing of the origins and spread of the knowledge society, in which science and research-based innovation have become the key determinants of economic growth and social development. Accordingly, BASF's history developed at the core of Germany's wartime economy during both world wars and highlights its strengths as well as its weaknesses. ... Read more

Book Description

Strategic management has been increasingly characterized by an emphasis on core competences. Firms are advised to divest unrelated businesses and return to core business. Moreover, competitive advantage is now increasingly seen as a matter of efficiently deploying scarce knowledge resources to product markets. Much of this change in emphasis has occurred because of the emergence of a unified and rigorous approach to strategy, often called the resource-based approach. This Reader brings together extracts from the seminal articles that created this dominant perspective in strategic management. It includes the pioneering work of Selznick, Penrose, and Chandler and more recent writing by Wenerfelt, Barney, Teece, and Prahalad and Hamel. ... Read more

Book Description

Ivan Collins, an Oregon genius, researched, planned, and built 62 of the most accurate, meticulous, and beautiful model horse-drawn vehicles to be found anywhere. Collins focused his considerable artistry on 1/8 scale vehicles that helped to settle the western United States. Collins’s Brougham, Concord coach, Albany sleigh, phaeton, omnibus, Victoria, medicine wagon, and other models have enchanted visitors to the exhibit of his models at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland for over three decades. This book is a catalog of Collins’s works, with photographs of each model, model dimensions, and brief information about the model and the historical vehicle it represents. It also includes an overview of Collins’s life and work and sample details of several of his plans. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Like a Coca-Cola bottle and a McDonald's arch, Kodak's yellow packaging has become a 20-century business icon. As the company prepares for the 21st century, however, all is not going smoothly. In much the way she chronicled the changing times at Proctor & Gamble in her previous book, Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Proctor & Gamble business editor Alecia Swasy now examines the film company's struggles in Changing Focus: Kodak and the Battle to Save a Great American Company. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Missed The Drama
Changing Focus could have been a compelling and dramatic story about the challenges still facing the Eastman Kodak Company. Sadly, it lacked focus, and more importantly, it was weak on drama.

Fiction or non-fiction, the story needs to be a 'page turner.' For example, the author glossed over the aborted attempt to move marketing headquarters from Rochester to D.C. The dramatic moment was a semi, drapped with a protest message by local merchants, parked in front of Kodak Headquarters during a board of directors meeting. The board freaked and the move was over in a Kodak moment. The author destroys CEO Kay Whitmore's financial judgement, but omitted an infamous memo by Jack Thomas, Whitmore's president, to all employees to reduce everything from postage stamps to toilet paper to achieve fourth quarter earnings. Wall Street howled and the stock went down with the stamps.

Without the real drama, Ms. Swasy dabbles in a variety of mundane opinions by employeees, insiders and the community. The Class of '93, a group of layoff victims, revisited often in the book, was not generally a sympathetic group. This is especially true of the Coutures, a yuppie couple impacted by layoffs, who sang, 'The world owes me a living,' throughout the book.

Swasy's biggest challenge is that the Kodak story is far from being complete. The battle with Fuji, the shift to digital, and the change in culture may one day yield a dramatic business case and drama. 'Changing Focus' is a blurred attempt, which falls short. ... Read more

Book Description

A Detroit Free Press reporter demythologizes Lee Iacocca’s leadership of Chrysler, demonstrating how salesmanship and self-promotion invariably trumped innovation and investment. “Everyone who cares about american industry should read [this book]” (New York Times Book Review). Index.
... Read more

Reviews (4)

Apparently, Mr Levin has an axe go grind.
He takes many liberties in trashing Chrysler products of the early 80's. For instance, he states that chrysler's 2.2 engine was based on "twenty year old technology" yet he offers no evidence to back up this claim. Mr. Levin also carps about the lack of technology in Chrysler's cars such as using a "beam axle" while conveniently overlooking the fact that other cars of this time frame used solid rear axles quite frequently. Nor does he give much coverage to Chryslers lowest cost per unit, the VNT technology used in its turbo cars, the fact it had OHC engines on the market LONG before GM and Ford, the first domestic auto company to use airbags in its cars, the firs electronically adaptive transmission.
Mr Levin admitted he got little in the way of cooperation from Iacocca and it appears he wrote this tome to vent against a good yet flawed man and a great company.

Not the Book It Could Have Been...
I really wanted to like this book, but was disappointed with the end result. When the author sticks to the facts of the story, it is a revealing look at the politics of running a struggling auto company. The biographical information of the main players in upper echelons was quite interesting, also.

However, there is a sense of the author's bias lurking throughout the pages. He manages to imply that somehow, once Toyota introduced the Corona in 1966, there wasn't a marketing misstep to be made by the Japanese, particularly Toyota. Do the nameplates "Crown", "Cressida" and "Echo" ring a bell? I won't even mention some of the other sad cars that other manufacturers have coughed up in the ensuing years, and still do occasionally, from both sides of the Pacific.

Every now and again factual errors will appear, but they're so glaring that somebody with even a moderate interest in the car industry will pick up on. For instance, Honda earned customer loyalty because they "never dropped a nameplate." Really? Where did one go in 1987 to purchase a new Honda 600 GT or Sports 800?

More troubling was a hint of elitism that came up a couple of times. Was there (is there) really anything wrong with selling new cars to the blue-collar crowd? I know that some people are consumed by image, but most of us don't care what anybody else is driving, as long as they know HOW to drive it. People without a stratospheric income should be able to make a fully warranted purchase and get "that new car smell", too.

Finally, too little of the book is spent explaining exactly what was wrong, quality-wise, with Chrysler vehicles. Aside from the Aspen / Volaré twins, there was precious little time given to specific examples of lax quality control or design deficiencies. Even the A/V cars were a major problem only in their first year. More detail would have been revealing as to why buyers were steering clear of Chrysler's showrooms in the late 70's, when the whole mess started.

I've always had an avid interest in the auto industry, and have been waiting for somebody to write a book on the true Lee Iacocca to show the savior / charlatan that he really was. Unfortunately, somebody else is going to have to write it. This one falls short.

In case anybody's wondering, I have owned several cars from both American and Japanese manufacturers, including an 80's era Chrylser product. I have enjoyed the majority of them, and the only lemon I ever picked was from a European make.

An Interesting Read for Car Enthusiasts
I found this book provided a quite interesting history of not only Chrysler, but the entire auto industry between the years of '70-'80. I particularly enjoyed the author's insights in to Chrysler's main player Iacocca. The book did however seem to jump around from subject to subject with no clear tie-ins. I found it difficult during some portions of the book to figure out what time frame the author was speaking of, as he tended to bounce back and forth. All in all I found the book to provide some excellent information on Chrysler and the prevailing personalities and values that has kept the organization alive for so many years through so many triumphs and tragedies.

Good book for those interested in recent Chrysler history
An interesting book that looks at the Iacocca era at Chyrsler. The book reads more like a series of articles (the author is also a journalist) than a novel, but is nevertheless an effective portrayal of Chyrsler, Iacocca and the American and Japanese auto industry of the late 70s thru the early 90s. Lots of background information on the auto industry with interesting historical tidbits as well. The book's only "flaw" is its tendency to tear apart the Iacocca legacy with nasty (but apparently true) stories that topple the former auto industry icon, thus providing a counterweight to Iacocca's own biographical portrayals. While not a tightly woven "can't put it down" book, it is nevertheless worth adding to your collection if you are an automotive buff or Chrysler buff. ... Read more

Book Description

Essays covering five case studies to gain an insight into the unique Latin American approach to petroleum resources and industries. ... Read more

Book Description

Here are lessons from the personal experience of the team that led one of the most successful transnational corporate mergers of all time-the transformation of SmithKline Beckman and the Beecham Group into SmithKline Beecham, one of the world's leading healthcare companies.

The authors-key players in the transformation process that became known as Simply Better-recount their thinking and actions as well as the successes, failures, and lessons learned. Through the story of the merger, they present a framework of five requisites for creating and sustaining a culture of change:--instilling a winning attitude
--making the organization the hero
--striving for continuous learning
--instituting strategic communication
--aligning behavior with strategy

For managers, this inside account offers a rare, behind-the-scenes glimpse into how a major company aligned its business actions and behavior to deliver a strategy in a rapidly changing industry, and shares lessons on how others can create an environment in which the ability to change sustains success. ... Read more

Book Description

This book describes the technical architecture and components that can be integrated in order to provide a comprehensive and robust infrastructure on which to build successful e-Business. It is essential reading for technical and functional team leaders and strategists, who analyse the options, limitations and possibilities for new technology and place them alongside the business requirements. Whyte intends to broaden the knowledge of specialists in computing, telecommunications, internet and electronic business. He also introduces the underlying business and technical principals of e business and how they interrelate to the undergraduates and postgraduate level at technical business units.

· Covers relevant and ever increasingly important issues such as security and business data processing.
· Bridges the gap between the fundamentals and the broader business models of e-business
· Detailed coverage of the functional architectures and technology
· Includes the technologies and techniques of on-line customer service, support and maintenance

The combination of both strategic and technical information in this text make it a valuable reference resource for telecommunication managers, e-business project leaders and final year and postgraduate students in computer science, electrical engineering and telecommunication courses and technical business units.

... Read more

Reviews (1)

Well written & business-focused
Although the title implies that this book is aimed at technical readers, it is strictly focused on the business aspects of e-business, with just enough emphasis on technology to educate non technical readers.

Among what I most like about the book is the clear writing, and the level of detain into which it goes into business and technical aspects of e-business. Technical readers will greatly benefit from the business aspects, especially the parts about online retailing and marketing. Moreover, some excellent material on customer relationship management is interwoven throughout the book, which will benefit both the business and technical reader. I also liked the parts about supply chain management, and trust, security and electronic money - these topics are important to business and technical readers and the material is accurate and clearly explained.

For business readers the details on architecture and technical underpinnings will arm them with the knowledge necessary for dealing with the technical side when it comes to implementing and managing the technology needed to support business imperatives.

There are additional bonuses to this book - it addresses knowledge management from a business perspective (important to providing online service and support to customers as well as showing how internal business processes need to be aligned to support online commerce), and keen insights on how the people side of the business needs to be structured to enable e-business operations.

Overall, this is an excellent view of the realities of implementing and managing e-business, and will provide common ground for the business and technical team members who will be charged with making it happen. ... Read more

Book Description

The investor-owned corporation is the conventional form for structuring large-scale enterprise in market economies.But it is not the only one.In The Ownership of Enterprise, Henry Hansmann explains why different industries and different national economies exhibit different patterns of ownership forms. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Toward a comprehensive classification of human organizations
Based on property right arrangements, Henry Hansmann proposed in his 1996 book an organizational classification covering most of organizations under the system of private property.With the postulate of cost minimization,he demonstrates convincingly how various kinds of organizations can beplaced into the analytical framework of economics.In my opinion, thisorganizational theory needs only some slight extension to become acomprehensive one that includes all organizations under the privateproperty system.With this extended viewpoint, all seemingly complicatedissues of organizations can be placed into a unified and systematicframework of analysis.This is the power and beauty of his organizationaltheory.My opinion is that Henry Hansmann has made path-breakingcontribution in the study of this filed, following R. Coase, A. Alchian,and S. Cheung. ... Read more