Reviews (3)

More integrated usability design
A nice management level explanation of the importance of usability design and how to incorporate it organically into the entire iterative design process. Schaffer emphasises finding the right people, starting at senior management, as much as the tasks that the people then do. The 'institutionalisation' in the title refers to this emphasis. He contrasts this with standard usability texts that focus on the methodology instead of the people who have to perform it.

Speaking of methodology, he devotes an entire chapter to it. He shows a figure of the old way, where the design of a technical solution was done first, followed by a design of the interface that would overlay it. He suggests reversing this order. Not bad, and probably valid in most cases. But there is one important case where the old way is still viable. Research. Where it is not certain that a solution exists. By necessity, investigation and implementation of a solution should come first. Because if it cannot be done, interface design is moot. Granted, most of his book refers to a commercial product, so the rejoinder could be that a research situation is outside the book's scope. But just keep this in mind when reading it.

He also includes a very topical section on the challenges of offshore staffings. (Indians, anyone?) It is certainly possible, though not trivial, to integrate such staff into the entire design cycle, in his experience. Of course, some American readers will find this unsettling. But it should not be a surprise. As offshore staff gain in experience, inevitably they will be able to do this.

Good book if you need to educate your company
I read and highlighted this book with the promise of my manager to read it after me (or at least the highlighting!). I am hoping the book will move up the management structure and make a difference. I believe the book is somewhat remedial if you have been in the usability world for very long, but if you are trying to influence an organization and educate them as to the value, methodology and how-to of usability, this book will help.

How to make doing usability right an institutional feature
The usability of computer interfaces is like art, essential, but difficult to quantify. However, with the proper approach, both can be taught and the best principles of usability can be formalized into a process. Creating such a process is not easy, requiring an ongoing commitment. Schaffer identifies four phases in the process of making usability issues a fundamental component of software design. They are the startup, setup, organization and long-term operations phases.
Like all startup phases when creating a process, institutionalizing usability begins with a change in mindset. This is often a response to a disaster, but the best people are proactive and realize that good usability is good business. As is the case in nearly all areas of software development, implementation of a process requires an executive champion, someone who understands the value and continues to insist that the proper quality be maintained. There is no question that this is the most important precondition to making usability an institutional requirement.
Schaffer steps through each of the phases, breaking them down into specific components. Issues such as standards, staffing, staff training, implementation strategies, planning and tools used in testing are covered in detail. In all cases, he gives detailed explanations of what to do and repeatedly emphasizes that a proactive strategy is generally the best one. I found his charts of boring to cool versus confusing to usable to be amusing and quite accurate.
As the population using computers has shifted from those with a great deal of computer expertise to the population in general, the height of the usability bar has been dramatically raised. Even computer experts are growing more impatient when using computers, expecting things to work quickly, accurately and be visually obvious. Therefore, making things easy to use is now as much a business necessity as the underlying function of the software. This book will teach you the ways to do it right once as well as how to formalize the process so that you do it right every time. ... Read more

Reviews (20)

An accessible guide to Quantum Computers
Some books are just out there like a beacon.
And obviously Julian Browns Minds, Machines and
the Multiverse is such a book. If you want
an accessible guide to the rapidly evolving field
of quantum computers, this is the book to buy.

Brown bedazzle the reader with the number of ideas
he comes up with on almost every page. All ideas somehow
connected under the headline Quantum Computers.
Quantum computing seems to connect computing and
physics in an explosive way. Thought, life and knowledge
these are computational things, whereas the
universe in at its most fundamental level is
physics. So obviously there is a lot to talk about.
And the book does so very elegantly, without ever
loosing track of the fact that this is a book
about quantum computers.

Starting the book I was a bit worried that the book
wouldn't provide a sufficient level of detail about
the quantum computers and instead indulge in
too much speculation. After reading the book I think
it balances factual information with speculation
just right.

Ok, Some might want to obtain additional details on
Peter Shors way to factor numbers efficiently on
a quantum computer. The intricacies of NP-complete
problems and quantum computers could have been
explored more. Some of the circuit analysis
could have been dealt with in even greater detail.
And why not write a complete book on competing
technologies for how to build an actual quantum
computer with actual live qubits?

But I guess the book wouldn't have been such a
fine introduction then. Now, The presentation is well
balanced and demonstrates a thorough grasp over
all the many details in the field of quantum computing.
Fascinating general insights on math, computing
and physics makes it a great and insightful read.

-Simon

Important topic marred by dull presentation
I read "Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse" (reprinted in paperback as "The Quest for the Quantum Computer") alongside David Deutsch's "The Fabric of Reality," thinking that Julian Brown's journalism would help elucidate Deutsch's text, which I assumed would be more difficult. Ironically, not only did I find "The Fabric of Reality" far more exciting and readable, but, even on its own terms, Brown's book was often monotonous and unimaginative.

While the first and last chapters are quite fascinating, the meat of the book reads like an endless serious of abstracts of articles excerpted from mathematical, physics, and computing journals, separated by droll subheads ("Beam Me Up, Atom by Atom"). The major problem is that Brown doesn't seem to have any particular audience in mind. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine most lay readers sitting through his detailed expositions on various mathematics and physics concepts; on the other, math-savvy readers don't need to be told (to cite just one example) what ASCII is.

It's not just that Brown's book is knee-deep in mathematics, however. In fact, the math presented is really not that difficult--it's just boringly presented. The endless series of Alice, Bob, Carol, and Eve stories has all the verve of the litany of questions on the SAT. (Several times I found myself asking, "Which Bob is this?"). Likewise, the descriptions of logic gates are about as exciting as my college textbooks on linear algebra and number theory. Brown's presentation is hampered further by the lack of a glossary; he repeatedly expects the reader to remember terms he discussed over 100 pages earlier.

In sum, computer programmers and armchair mathematicians looking for a primer on the theoretical underpinnings of quantum computation might find this book a helpful introduction. The general reader, however, will have to wait for a well-written overview of the subject. In the meantime, I recommend "The Fabric of Reality" as a starting point.

The best overview of Quantum Computing I've seen...
In The Quest for the Quantum Computer, Julian Brown takes a look at the emerging field of Quantum Computing, a field that could potentially revolutionize many fields of computing and far-edge technology, such as cryptography, information theory, higher mathematics, and nanotechnology.

So what is a Quantum Computer, anyway?

A Quantum computer, in Brown's term (derived from the work of David Deutsch and Richard Feynman), is a computer based on an atom-scale architecture that, rather than using standard digital logic gates, uses logic gates based on "qubits", or quantum bits, that can carry a bit with a value of 1, 0, or any position that could theoretically exist in between. Such a computer could be used to process massive matrices of information in paralell, and solve mathematical problems previously thought impossible to answer.

Still following?

If not, the book isn't for you. It's quite dense, and filled with logical and mathematical jargon- it was clearly intended to be a "popular" book for a select audience- people with physics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science backgrounds. But if you're interested in "the new physics", on-the-edge computing, or future technologies in general, pick this book up.

Almost perfect
This is the book I recommend to all my technical friends who are wondering what quantum computing is about. Brown writes with astonishing lucidity and an intense focus on what he's trying to communicate. If this book has a flaw, it's that I think it gives Deutsch and the many-universes interpretation of QM a bit too much airtime. Deutsch's views are well-presented in many other places and it dilutes this book somewhat to spend so much time on him when it really isn't necessary.

I don't understand the review that said this book wasn't technical enough. Yes, it's not a textbook for learning how to write quantum algorithms. But it does have detailed quantum circuit diagrams for a number of useful or interesting ones. When I read this book I finally saw enough of the details to "get it". I launched from this directly into the scientific literature without getting too terribly lost.

I would recommend this book over Milburn's "The Feynman Processor". Milburn knows his material but he tends to wander a lot. His book is OK and useful, but this one is better. I'd put it in the same class as Gleick's "Chaos".

Could be interesting, but WAY over my head . . .
The idea of a quantum computer is quite fascinating. Since a colleague of mine studied quantum computing at Oxford, I thought I might read up on the subject. My expectations were that "The Quest" would be something that would get the lay reader up to speed. I don't mind being stretched a bit (I have a Ph.D. in chemical engineering), but the book was just way too over the top for any not intimately familiar with quantum physics. The book contains a lot of interesting information, but it is sandwiched between some very difficult concepts and nomenclature. Remember, "know your audience . . ." ... Read more

Reviews (120)

Gates' dreams...
I bought the book couple of days ago and it didn't take me much time to through. What genuinely surprised me is the number of Mr. Gates' thoughts about the Info Highway that came true: customizable portals, fight for broadband between phone and cable companies, online auctions and etc. I don't recall any other so called "visionaries" and "experts" talking about it in back 1995...

Many people don't like Gates because he's so rich, but I think that he and all Microsoft (yes, MS is not Bill Gates alone!) team deserved it for all their hard work and vision. I think that Bill Gates' success is that Microsoft managed to create the world where its products are the most needed ones to allow his company to stay on the top... He and his team deserve full credit for this feat.

At the same time I wish good luck to all young entrepreneurs who will start their companies and deprive Microsoft of its reins eventually. This is the capitalism, a great system with opportunities for everyone with guts.

It was interesting to see what's on Bill's mind
The book was without a doubt designed to be more of an advertisement of self and Microsoft, but there is no actual boasting and self-focus there. I enjoyed it. Of course in terms of predicting the future the book failed, still the history of technology and general trends are outlined quite well. Ingenuity and innovation are not the greatest Bill Gates' and Microsoft's strengths, they are very good at making money, bying or burying competitors and using somebody else's ideas. However I must admit that Bill has outstanding entrepreneurial talents and surely can market himself and his company. I was curious what the richest man in the world was about, and I wasnt disappointed. Bill (or his ghost writers) can write very well, readers will enjoy the language and dynamics of the book, and throughout "The Road Ahead" you are very subtly and indirectly lead to believe that Bill has been the main engine in the PC revolution. Job well done.

Worth reading
Definitely worth reading. I'd also, however, suggest that if you really are curious about the early years of computing, you use the internet to check up other opinions of Microsoft's origin. There's two sides to every story...

Mr. Gates is is undoubtedly a phenomenal businessman, though not perhaps quite the visionary he perceives himself to be. Would a visionary have to rewrite his book a year after completion? The internet took off - and The Road Ahead received a complete overhaul to reflect the recent developments. More like, The Road Behind. He's also not quite such an innovator - Microsoft purchased "MS-DOS", rather than created it, and incorporated many other people's ideas into Windows (without permission, of course).

This isn't just a Microsoft bashing session. I have the greatest respect for them. But, think twice before you believe every word in this book. There is a definite stretching of the truth in places. Having said that, buy it - it's an interesting comparison with other accounts of the dawn of personal computing. No doubt the truth is somewhere in between.

"Not supported"
Mr Gates didn't mention anything about Java running on any platform/machine

He didn't mention anything about Linux being free

He didn't mention anything "new" about IBM their Lotus Notes products

Didn't mention anything "significant" about future changes in graphics and companies like Pixar and Disney

He didn't mention anything about Oracle and middleware

He didn't mention anything about the POWER of Ebay, Yahoo, Google and Amazon to get you things!!

What about AOL?, and what about the fact that he didn't even once mention Netscape, the superior company who revelutionized the Internet with their browser.

Don't get me wrong it is a very good book. However somewhat lopsided
I guess I must be on a different road than the one Mr Gates is traveling on.
btw: I happen to be one of the many Microsoft Certified Professionals that invested a significant amount of my own money and time supporting his products.
(10 grand and 12 years)

I think this book is as much about what is NOT in the book as opposed to what IS in the book!!
Buy it anyway! (Maybe used - it is some what dated) You will learn something just by being exposed to it.
The concept of The Web as being "self publishing" was an eye opener for me.
My favorite chapter and quote was from Chapter 8 Friction-Free Capitalism. "Our success in the PC world has come from working in partnership with such great companies as Intel, Compaq, HP, DEC, NEC, and dozens of others. Even IBM and Apple, with whom we have occasionally been in competition, have had an immense amount of our cooperation and support. We created a company that was dependent on partners. We bet that somebody other than us would do great chips, somebody other than us would build great PCs, somebody other than us would do great distribution and integration. We took a narrow slice and focused on that. In this new world, we want to work with companies from every industry to help them make the most of the opportunities the information revolution will bring." page 182

Well here are some other technology people and companies you might want to investigate as I am sure they too will have an impact on the direction of the road we will all be traveling: (unless of course, he buys them or squeezes them out)
Doug Humphrey - Founder, Digex ; Chairman and Founder, Cidera
Jonathan Klein - Co-founder and CEO, Getty Images
Tom Stockham - President of Access and Emerging Markets, Ticketmaster

Chip Perry - President and CEO - AutoTrader.com, former VP, Los Angeles Times
Jim McCann - Founder, Chairman and CEO - 1-800-FLOWERS
Brooks Fisher - Vice President (Strategic Initiatives), Intuit; former VP, Infoseek
Micheal Rubin - Founder, Chairman and CEO - Global Sports
Robert Covington - Chief Technology Officer and EVP, MerchantWired
Rob Burgess - Chairman and CEO - Macromedia; former SVP, Silicon Graphics
Steven Snyder - founder and chairman - Net Perceptions
Kenneth Cron - CEO, Flipside, Inc; former President of Publishing, CMP Media
Emerick Woods - President and CEO - Vicinity
Glenn Meakem - Founder, Chairman and CEO - FreeMarkets
Ted Meisel - President and CEO - GoTo.com
Nicholas vanDyk- President, Artisan New Media; EVP, Artisan Entertainment
Glenn Meyers- Founder and CEO - Rare Medium Group
Mark Goldstein - President and CEO - K-Mart's BlueLight
Charles Johnson - Founder and CEO - PurchasePro
David Perry- Founder, Chairman and CEO - Ventro
Alan Meckler- Founder, Chairman and CEO - INTMedia Group
Christopher Jenkins - former President, Ziplink; former VP, Arch Communications
Michael Levy -Founder and CEO - CBS Sportsline
John Schwarz - CEO - Reciprocal; former General Manager, IBM Solutions
Chris MacAskill - Founder -FatBrain.com, CEO - MightyWords
Harry Motro - Chairman, MotroVentures, former CEO - Infoseek
Zach Nelson - CEO and President, Mcafee ASaP
Joe Chung - Founder and Chairman, Art Technology Group
Jeet Singh - Founder and CEO, Art Technology Group

Royal Farros - Chairman, CEO and Founder, iPrint Inc.
Pehong Chen - Founder and CEO, BroadVision
Jeffrey Smith - Founder and CEO, Tumbleweed Communications
Scott Kurnit - CEO and Founder of About Inc.
Bob Young - Founder and Chairman, Red Hat Software
Scott Mednick - Founder, Think New Ideas; former Chairman, Worldwide Exceed
Tom Rogers- President and CEO, Primedia, former President, NBC Cable
Russell Horowitz - Founder and former Chairman, Go2Net Inc.

Naveen Jain - Founder and Chairman, InfoSpace
Michael Rosenfelt - Venture Partner, Impact Venture Partners; Founder, Powered, Inc.
Charles Conn - Co-founder and former Chairman, TicketmasterCitySearch.com
Mark Walsh - Chairman, VerticalNet; former SVP, America Online
David Goldberg - Founder and CEO, Launch Media
John Holt - Founder and CEO, The Cobalt Group
(From the book eFront! by Mattew W. Ragas)

Latvia is not North Korea
On page 263 Mr. Gates writes, "If people do gravitate to their own interests and withdraw from the broader world -- if weight lifters communicate only with other weight lifters, and Latvians choose to read only Latvian newspapers -- there is a risk that common experience and values will fall away. Such xenophobia would have the effect of fragmenting societies." By this statement Bill Gates is suggesting that people who get their information about the world from Latvian newspapers will become as narrow in their outlook as people whose only interest is weight lifting. What a misguided low opinion of Latvian newspapers! This opinion -- after about 1990, when Latvia gained its freedom (including freedom of the press) for a second time -- cannot possibly be based on any real knowledge of what is contained in Latvian newspapers.

I regularly read the largest Latvian newspaper, Diena (Day), online (anyone can take a look at Diena by just asking Google.com to find Diena for them) and I can assure you that it is broad in scope and caters to all kinds of interests. International news, world cultural events, advances in technology, etc., are well covered. It is true that in Diena you will find more news about Latvia than you would find in the New York Times, but it is also true that the New York Times will have more news about New York City than the Seattle Post Intelligencer. So you can be sure that Latvians who choose to read Latvian newspapers exclusively, as well as those who have no choice because they only know Latvian, are no more likely to be doomed to xenophobia than readers of Finnish, Estonian, or Lithuanian newspapers. Perhaps when Mr. Gates chose Latvia for his example he really was thinking of neighboring Belarus, but maybe his finger slipped on the map.

The rest of the book I found very informative. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of the modern world (even though it was written in 1995).

For not knowing the difference between a fine Latvian newspaper and a weight lifters' chat room I would like to deduct one-half star, but Amazon.com does not offer that option, so I am rounding down to an even four stars. ... Read more

Book Description

"This book is an eye-opener to the differences between how software gets built and how it gets sold."

— Michael Ernest, JavaRanch Sheriff (Read the 9 horseshoe review on JavaRanch.com)

"Big corporations...have the money and the brain cells, but despite this, still manage to shoot themselves in the feet every now and then."

— Valentin Crettaz, (Read the review on Val's Blog: Stuff for software engineers and Java addicts)

In Search of Stupidity is National Lampoon meets Peter Drucker. It's a funny and well-written business book that takes a look at some of the most influential marketing and business philosophies of the last 20 years and, through the dark glass of hindsight, provides an educational and vastly entertaining examination of why they didn't work for many of the country's largest and best-known high-tech companies. Make no mistake: most of them did not work.

Marketing wizard Richard Chapman takes readers on a hilarious ride in this book, which is richly illustrated with cartoons and reproductions of many of the actual campaigns used at the time. Filled with personal anecdotes spanning Chapman's remarkable career (he was present at many now-famous meetings and events), In Search of Stupidity is a no-holds-barred look at the best of the worst hopeless marketing ideas and business decisions in the last 20 years of the technology industry.

Reviews (46)

Best Business Book Ever Written
I'm not really a marketing weenie but I've gotten stuck with the task of acting as a marketing manager for a new release in our product line. We're a software company who builds GPS program. We've been having a lot of problems with the new release as a lot of our customers have been expressing confusion about what the new product does and why it's different from our existing program, which is selling pretty well.

A friend of mine visited the website that has excerpts of this book up and thought I might find it useful. I bought a copy and the first chapter I began reading deals with a company called "Wordstar." I've never heard of them but it was the description of what happened to them that caught my attention. Apparently they built two Wordstars, priced them the same, gave them similar features and tried to sell them to the same people.

I went into the office the next day and sat down with the company founder and read the chapter. When he was done, he looked at me and said "that's what we are doing, isn't it." And we are. Now I have to fix this mess, but at least I understand what's been going on.

I'm having this book bronzed.

Stupid Human Tricks
I loved this book.

Kind of like stupid human tricks for software companies.

This book offers many funny anecdotes choked full of technical marketing lessons. They were very relevant for me as my career traced the rise of high-tech over the last two decades.

One can only wonder how management at once-major players (Novell, Ashton Tate, Netscape, etc) acted so "stupidly". You would think its quite difficult to screw the pooch when you are the dominate networking vendor (e.g., Novell) , have the 1st mover advantage, annually sell billions in product, customers like your product and have several 1000 employees. But Rick describes in painstaking detail Novells wrenching fall. Having built several Novell and Microsoft oriented products, this chapter alone for me was worth the price of the book.

Plus the book was hard to put down with all the named names... Ed Esber, Ray Noorda, Jim Manzi, Philippe Khan stupid human tricks.

If you are in the tech business, buy this book. Read it too.

Entertaining walk down memory lane.
The author describes his experience and observations around famous failures in software industry. The language is very entertaining. His description of MicroPro's dilemma with Word Start and Word Star 2000 'MicroPro wrestled itself to the ground' made me laugh.

Author's repeated description of 'I was there', 'I was the first one', 'I still have that floppy' etc. are boring. A bit of foot notes are good, but this book has tons.

This is a good book for entertainment. Not a great one if you want to learn something serious.

Wickedly funny with lessons to learn...
In Search Of Stupidity - Over 20 Years Of High-Tech Marketing Disasters by Merrill R. Chapman (Apress) is a wickedly funny read with some very real lessons on how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Chapman takes a look back at the first two decades of the high-tech industry to see how companies with dominant product leads squandered those advantages to become irrelevant (or non-existent). The examples are numerous... IBM and the PC, Micropro and Wordstar, Novell and Netware. He actually worked for some of the companies that are under the microscope, so there is an insider's color and flavor that you don't normally see from a customer perspective. Because of the biting style of writing, the book doesn't suffer from a lofty "anyone could see this coming" attitude that so many of these historical examinations seem to adopt.

Back to the writing style... Chapman has a satirical, wicked wit that is used to maximum advantage here. Even if you weren't terribly interested in the content, it would be worth a read for the laughs. I haven't enjoyed a business book this much in a long time.

And by the way... Don't pass up the glossary at the end. It's the cherry on top of a great sundae.

Humorous History of High-Tech Gaffes
This book is designed to be the counterpart to the Tom Peters and Bob Waterman best seller since 1982, In Search of Excellence. I agree that it makes more sense to check out stupidity than excellence. Most people tell me that they learn more from seeing disasters than from reading about top performance. In addition, time has cast doubt on the wisdom of what those "excellent" companies did since so many of them have tanked since then.

Why would anyone want to read about all of the stupid things that companies have done since the early 1980s to lose money, destroy customer relationships, go bankrupt and annoy everyone? Well, it should be because almost everyone makes a fatal error in a high tech company. Only Microsoft among the software companies has avoided that folly. Among PC companies, only Dell seems immune to date. Intel flirted with a fatal error when it tried to ignore its Pentium floating point problem. $500 million later, it was wiser.

Another good reason for reading about them is that Mr. Chapman is a very funny writer. He makes the stories very entertaining. He also was present at some of the most inauspicious moments which gives the stories an extra verve that's irresistible.

I especially enjoyed the afterword which explained in detail why it's always a stupid idea to rewrite working code from scratch to create the next release.

I agree with the conclusion that tech companies need to be headed by people who understand the technical issues and the business challenges so they can make informed decisions about what to do next. I also suggest that investors read this book to get early warning signs of high tech meltdowns.

Many people will be annoyed by this book because it suggests that Microsoft deserves its place in the software industry in part due to having avoided major errors and providing top-rated products. Naturally, there are still many stories of Microsoft's bullying tactics. So you'll still have a chance to be annoyed with Microsoft part of the time as you read the book.

Mr. Chapman has such a talent for this work that I hope he will choose to apply it to politicians next. That could be really funny! ... Read more

Book Description

Gates reveals the guiding genius behind the unparalleled success of theMicrosoft Corporation-- the biggest and most profitable personal computer software company in history-- and exposes the intensely competitive tactics that help it dominate the desktops of America.Chairman and co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is the most powerful person in the computer industry and the youngest self-made billionaire in history. His company's DOS and Windows programs are such universal standards that more than nine out of ten personal computers depend on Microsoft software. Under the "Microsoft Everywhere" rallying cry, Gates intends to expand his company's worldwide dominance to office equipment, communications, and home entertainment.Vivid and definitive, Gates details the behind the scenes history of the personal computer industry and its movers and shakers, from Apple to IBM, from Steve Jobs to Ross Perot. Uncovering the inside stories of the bitter battle for control of the expanding personal computing market, Gates is a bracing, comprehensive portrait of the industry, the company, and the man-- and what they mean for a future where software is everything. ... Read more

Reviews (19)

Best Gates Biography Around
I first read "Gates" back in 1993. Many books about Bill Gates have been written since. But "Gates" by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews is still by far the best book about Bill Gates.

Still Best Gates Biography Around
I first read "Gates" back in 1993. Many books about Bill Gates have been written since. But "Gates" by Stephen Manes and
Paul Andrews is still by far the best book about Bill Gates.

A Detailed History in the Making of a Monoply...
I won't get wordy here but I read this book twice and enjoyed it both times. It goes into the life of Bill Gates; his thought process, his work ethics, his childhood and how Microsoft established it's dominance. It's a good read even though it's over 500 pages. I highly recommend this book along with the book "Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire". This is the way it really happened. Not the way the movie "Pirates of SV" incorrectly portrayed it.

Great history of PC computing
I bought this book expecting to skim through it to find out a little more about what Bill Gates was like. But it's a wonderfully readable history of the growth of PC's, from the early days when the best a school kid (Bill himself) could do was to try to get access to a teletype time-share system, on through the first home "computers" that amounted to little more than a bunch of switches and LEDs (no keyboard or monitor), to IBM coming out with the PC and Microsoft's amazing good fortune at supplying the OS (great story! Bill just cared about programming languages, mostly BASIC, and saw the DOS manuever mostly just as a way to ensure that BASIC would run on the new IBM machine!), on thru the OS/2 vs. Windows battles.

It even has a lot of inside detail on the development of the Apple Macintosh. I recently read "Accidental Empires" (the basis for the TV documentary "Triumph of the Nerds"), and found Gates to be a far better and more readable history of the PC's startup.

The book is packed with interviews and amusing or interesting anecdotes. It's well written and well edited. One drawback for some people will be that it hasn't been updated since 1995, but for the two main things that have happened since then - the anti-trust suit against Microsoft and the rise of the Internet - there are plenty of other sources.

An interesting account of Bill and the evolution of the PC
This very readable book provides a candid overview of the rise of Bill Gates and Microsoft. I found it interesting and insightful. Like much of the material about "billg", I find it a little sycophantic -- but it is not over the top. Key success ingredients: early signs of selfishness, million dollar trust-fund from his grandfather (which no doubt provided safety and leverage at the start), an early passion for an incredibly important technology at the critical period and a shrewd, single-mindedness. I suspect Bill is not a particularly compassionate, polite, happy or fair person -- however I bet he is really efficient! ... Read more

Amazon.com

Softwar is a biography of Larry Ellison and his company, Oracle. As such, it's simultaneously a portrait of a clever and driven man, a case study of a successful software development company, and a tableau of the commercial software industry from its beginnings, through the dot-com craze, and into the present era. Matthew Symonds, who began this project while working as the editor of the excellent technology section of the Economist, has done a great job with all three elements of his project, thanks in no small part to the tremendous access he was given and to his close collaboration with Ellison.

Collaboration is very nearly the right word, as Ellison reviewed Symonds' manuscript before publication and, while he did not alter it, he did make a large number of comments, which appear in the book as footnotes. As Symonds is a good journalist who attributes most of his material, Ellison is able to take issue immediately with statements other people make about him and his company. The overall effect is hypertextual, and represents an important new biographical technique that other writers should imitate. Softwar succeeds because Ellison has a fantastically interesting life, tremendous experience, and carefully considered opinions, and because Symonds communicates them with clarity and style. --David Wall

Topics covered: The life, times, acquaintances, tastes, toys, and opinions of Larry Ellison, the database entrepreneur and CEO of Oracle Corporation. ... Read more

Reviews (25)

Highly Recommended!
This book is a comprehensive, detailed collection of Larry Ellison anecdotes and quotes from people around him. Author Matthew Symonds occasionally interjects himself, but mostly lets his sources talk. Perhaps for fairness, he quotes many people who disagree with each other about important decisions at Oracle. Perhaps for journalistic objectivity, he generally refrains from judgment. This shows the reader every perspective, even if it doesn't define context, chronology or direction. You get all of the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, though you may want a clearer box top picture. Some of the technology coverage will intrigue only tech industry buffs, but overall you will learn a great deal of interesting information about Ellison and Oracle.
We also found that Ellison's character came most into focus when the book entered the world of yacht racing, his passion. The author also includes poignant, revealing anecdotes about Ellison's childhood and candid reports about his personal life. Larry Ellison was allowed to review the manuscript and his comments appear as counterbalancing footnotes on many pages. That guy, he always does things a new way - as you will see.

Why I Read This At Starbucks
I've been drinking a lot of coffee at Starbucks while reading 'Softwar.' It's such a great read, I can't put the book down (and don't want to go to sleep). I have read a few books and articles about Larry Ellison and Oracle and this book is the most insightful and interesting piece of work. Larry's footnotes, which counter, clarify or expand on the authors passages are a unique and worthwhile addition - adding credibility to this title. 'Softwar' comprehensively covers both the business of Oracle and offers a surprisingly intimate view of Larry's life and thinking. At the same time, Matthew Symonds presents a balanced portrait of the man who admits in his footnotes to making some mistakes, but who also demonstrates a keen intellect, foresight and a sense of humor.'Softwar' is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary man and his enterprise - a must read for those who want to be inspired and have a better understanding of business, technology and human nature.

Master of the poison, master of the cure
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was an open secret that if you were what was called then "one of the freaks" and you had, perhaps, taken a few physics or math classes involving computer usage, you could get work for any number of banks, insurance agencies and other mainframe users. The boss was grateful for your work, and, you could pretty much control the conditions.

It appears that Larry Ellison was one of these early programmers, whose maturation is documented in this book. But as with any maturation, it includes the acquisition of blind spots.

For while I in general support Larry's goal of eliminating "islands" within organizations of isolated and contradictory data and code, I am more pessimistic than he as to whether it can be accomplished.

The well-known and by now well-worn theme of Derrida, that of the undecidable gap between writing and speech, means that the ultimate grand vision, of "one" data base, may never be attained.

Larry is right about the Internet: it is the Last Big Thing. This can be proven apriori. For given two or more networks, and given zero cost and high benefit in their connection, whether through a narrow gateway or broadband, then we can say that the two networks "want" to become one network and instantaneously, at warp speed, shall do so. In the late 1980s, several networks operated in academia, government and privately did just this because there is, absent security considerations, a seemingly irresistable craving on the part of networks to join other networks and indeed to become the Internet.

This is the synthetic apriori argument, for both the existence and unity of the Internet as a given. However, and as soon as it is constructed, the reverse, analytic argument against the Internet's usability by the corporation may be constructed, which will return us to Mr. Ellison: for I fail to see how the possibility, of constructing a single logical path to a single data base for the organization, means it can be actualized.

I fail to see this because this has long been an unmet promise of ultimate managerial control within organizations (the "executive dashboard" being one such foolish idea), a control which manages to dismiss the fact that an organization consists of the labor of intelligent beings all the way down...to the person who picks up the trash.

I fail to see this because as a form inescapably of writing, data systems imply their own multiplicity. The "scribe" in all societies develops his own agenda and there is no check on him available to power as such, because power as such relies on the self-interested "scribe" to transmit its will and an almost (but not quite) mathematical problem results in the self-reflexivity.

The crisis is in Mr. Ellison's genuine concern with the way in which data and human intelligence systems failed to predict September 11, a concern which I happen to share. Indeed, I believe that September 11 starkly fulfilled a dismal prophecy of the late hero computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra.

Unlike many highly-placed figures in the computer science establishment, hero computer scientist Dijkstra was concerned, all the way down, about the quality and even the basic correctness of the data systems being designed over his lifetime, and he said at one point that he feared that organizations would collapse under the cumulative overcomplexity of their unmastered data systems. The stark images of a collapsing center for symbol processing on September 11 may be the fulfillment of this prophecy.

One of the FBI field agents assigned to investigation of terrorism prior to September 11, Colleen Rowley, testified before Congress that she did not even have the capability to enter Boolean format queries in the FBI data base, for example of the form "terrorist association and attends flight school".

Of course, Oracle data bases of the sort Larry and his company provide, provide this capability in mass quantities. At the same time, their very complexity (which may be unavoidable) generates scribal bureaucracies which are in both Plato's and Derrida's sense pharmakon, poison and cure, and, in general, the hair of the dog.

It is clear that these sorts of scribal bureaucracies at the FBI felt that some sort of extension or hack to provide rapidly the needed capability at the FBI was a "hard" problem, because these scribal bureaucracies reproduce themselves by insisting that such problems are "hard", and that the CEO is too busy to involve himself with writing...in a stark, if completely unconscious, replication of Plato's account of writing.

The result today is that a great deal of social inequality, created in part by fortune-seeking by the scribal class, means that it's impossible to create a unified written "intelligence" for policy making, and the result is an out of control foreign policy which as I write is creating preconditions for further terrorism.

Symonds breathlessly notes that Larry and his wife are both big fans of Donald Rumsfeld. Bush, and Bush's war, have deep roots in the self-interest of the new, successful American elite.

This elite marched and protested its parent's war in Vietnam, and, Ellison was a supporter of Robert Kennedy's fatal bid for the 1968 presidential nomination. Rumsfeld, for that matter, was an anti-war Republican under Nixon.

However, it appears that Larry may be blind to realities in much the same way that middle-aged managers were blind to the downside of enormous mainframe computing in the early 1970s. He views the future as one of large corporations competing, especially in his own industry, for a diminishing pie.

However, large corporations are composed of intelligent agents, who act from a unique combination of self-interest and complete irrationality, and, just as Ellison's own generation constructed its own reality in the form of microcomputer and micro culture, the next generation may prove him wrong. Or, Dijsktra's prophecy may come true, in which case we'll be busy gathering firewood and not worrying about SQL.

Highly Recommended
This book is a comprehensive, detailed collection of Larry Ellison anecdotes and quotes from people around him. Author Matthew Symonds occasionally interjects himself, but mostly lets his sources talk. Perhaps for fairness, he quotes many people who disagree with each other about important decisions at Oracle. Perhaps for journalistic objectivity, he generally refrains from judgment. This shows the reader every perspective, even if it doesn't define context, chronology or direction. You get all of the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, though you may want a clearer box top picture. Some of the technology coverage will intrigue only tech industry buffs, but overall you will learn a great deal of interesting information about Ellison and Oracle. We also found that Ellison's character came most into focus when the book entered the world of yacht racing, his passion. The author also includes poignant, revealing anecdotes about Ellison's childhood and candid reports about his personal life. Larry Ellison was allowed to review the manuscript and his comments appear as counterbalancing footnotes on many pages. That guy, he always does things a new way - as you will see.

A Great Book about a Very Interesting Company
A fascinating book. I should note that I worked at Oracle for 12 years (1989-1991), though much too far down in the hierarchy to have had dealings with Larry Ellison himself. But when Symonds writes about the people that I did know and work for and with, he hasn't struck a single false note. He has captured very accurately the Oracle culture--a lot of very bright and very driven people, with of course a few inevitable mistakes thrown in.

In this book, Ellison comes over as one of the most insightful leaders in SV in the 80s and 90s. I wasn't always able to see this side of him, as I kept hearing negative reports from those who had been subjected to his (earlier, and admitted by him in this book to have been wrong) MBR (management by ridicule) approach.

I believe Symonds has done an accurate evaluation of Ellison, and Ellison, in his footnotes, comes over as a thoughtful person able to admit where he was wrong. ... Read more

Amazon.com

John Cassidy’s Dot.con is the most sweeping and definitive assessment published thus far of the stock market mania that swept this country in the late 1990s. Cassidy, who covers economics and finance for The New Yorker, finds many seeds for the boom: Vannevar Bush’s “memex” machine, the “intellectual forerunner of the World Wide Web”; increasing popularity of 401(k)s and IRAs, which introduced millions of Americans to the equity markets, giving rise to a “stock market culture"; and the attention and hype in the late '80s and early '90s surrounding the “information superhighway” promoted by the likes of Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, and Nicholas Negroponte. When Netscape went public in 1995, the Internet mania began a five-year run that was fueled in part by the media, the policies promoted by Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve, the rise of day trading, and the deluge of IPOs brought to market by firms such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch and their analyst cheerleaders Mary Meeker and Henry Blodget. For anyone who got caught up in the mania and foundered in its eventual crash, Dot.con is a bittersweet trip down memory lane that Cassidy captures just perfectly. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards ... Read more

Reviews (35)

An Instant Classic
New Yorker financial writer, John Cassidy, says it all in this brilliantly rendered, highly entertaining account of the biggest economic scandal of the last twenty-five years--Enron who?--the crash and burn of the relentlessly hyped dot.com sector. One part historic overview, two parts searing indictman of the financial-technological-media nexus, Dot.Con--as the Wall Street Journal said last week--will be read by generations of Wharton and Harvard B school grads still unborn. Not since John Kenneth Galbraith have we had a popular economist with this kind of reach--or depth. Bravo.

Competent overview but not without flaws
The first thing you'd say about this book is that, however clever the title, it's erroneous: this isn't the story of a "con" at all, it's the story of a speculative bubble.

The whole point is that no-one was "conned" by the hot air. As Cassidy mentions from the outset, the prospectuses all contained large print health warnings in prominent places: "THIS COMPANY HAS NEVER MADE ANY MONEY, MOST LIKELY NEVER WILL" - but the punters still bought and bought. There were many psychological and sociological factors at play, but deception was not one of them.

For all that, Dot Con is well researched, well written and entertaining into the bargain (my copy was the paperback second edition in which the typos & manifest errors spotted by keen Amazonians (none of which, in my view, was earth-shattering) had been corrected). Cassidy describes briefly and competently the history of the internet and the general financial environment of the last 50 years, and then takes you into the maelstrom of the bubble from 1995 to 2001, all of which he portrays in suitably stunned-mullet fashion. The new edition features a lengthy epilogue which surveys the wreckage and covers the subsequent inquiry into the practices of investment banking firms and their uneasy relationships with their research analysts, all of which is still very current.

While he doesn't really dwell on it, I think Cassidy would come out in favour of more market regulation and intervention: He's especially critical of the Fed's approach to monetary policy and the atmosphere on the street which led to the boom in the first place.

In some ways (though it's hardly fashionable to say so) the investment banking firms and fund managers were as much victims of this as anyone: while the roof is blowing off the market and the choice is to join in and make hay, or watch your competitors annexing large portions of your market share while you sit on your hands, it is a singular Wall Street firm indeed which chooses to sit the boom out.

In any event this is a thoughtful and well put together book and serves as a pretty good overview of some of the most remarkable times in the history of modern finance.

Good book, but many details have already been told
Dot.con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold lacks the same level of insight and originality. For most readers who stay abreast of current events in technology and the Internet, there is not a lot of new information in the book. The Internet bubble crashed some years ago, so a book on the subject can't be expected to be too original.

The book details the anecdotes of such Internet personality as Jeff Bezos, Mary Meeker, James Cramer, Jeff Walker, and Henry Blodgett. Nonetheless, such stories have been detailed in numerous places numerous times.

Cassidy does provide some rather good insights of the personality and mindset of Alan Greenspan, and he does a great job of showing an economic overview of the atmosphere that helped create the Internet bubble and how it led to its ultimate demise. If anything, Cassidy's brief biography of Greenspan is a well-written defense of the Fed Chairman.

But for anyone who reads Forbes, Wired, or the New York Times on a regular basis, much of the details of Dot.con have already been told. This is proven in the book's bibliography, which references such periodicals numerous times.

They could have been more thorough...
An examination of the dot.com stock bubble. Amazing number of typos and wrong numbers. Interesting reading, but I really have a problem with books like this. They come off as knowing what was happening when it was happening. In reality, without the benefit of hindsight they are no more knowledgeable than we are.

Excellent, Highly Recommended.
An excellent account of the rise and fall of the Dot Com bubble. Starts with a history of the internet and the world wide web and then moves into a detailed chronicle of the 1994-2001 internet stock market bubble. For someone who knew a lot about the internet from 1998 onwards but little about the economy behind it, I found it a very interesting read and a great education. A great story, well written. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the stock market, the internet and especially e-commerce. ... Read more

Book Description

In the annals of American business, Digital Equipment Corporation's case history ranks among the most interesting. Over its 40-year lifetime, it reached the Fortune 50, had sales of over $14 billion, and for a time was the number-two computer maker, behind only IBM. It also was a computing pioneer, creating a great many of the innovations we take for granted today. Yet it failed as a business and was ultimately sold to Compaq. In this book, DEC insiders analyze the culture of innovation that drove DEC to the top - how it was created, how it evolved, and why it ultimately collapsed. Author Edgar Schein's past and current consulting clients include Apple, Citibank, General Foods, Hewlett-Packard, and others. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A provacative read
Many discussions and articles that chronicle the rise and fall of Digital simplify the failure to either "The president [Ken Olsen] blew it," or "They missed the PC revolution," or some combination of both. This book shows how the culture that so successfully nourished creativity and genius in the company's nascent days brought chaos, confusion, and internecine warfare in later days when the larger company faced a host of competitors and needed to efficiently produce commodity items. I think that the authors go a little too lightly on the role of (mis)management in Digital's failure, but they do a good job of bringing to light many other aspects of Digital's problematic history. The authors seem a bit full of themselves at times, but they have a compelling and sobering story to tell.

Helpful Assemblage of Facts about DEC as a Case History
Professor Schein has written a helpful case history of Digital Equipment Corporation as a computer industry innovator from the perspective of its organizational culture. He draws successfully on his own direct observations during decades of consulting work, and involves others for their experiences as well in describing the organizational culture. The most helpful parts are in the form of notes and comments that occurred during the rise and fall of DEC. His main weakness as an observer is that he lumps too much of what was missing from DEC under his continuing references to the "business gene." The case history, as a result, is too light on other aspects of DEC.

Anyone who is interested in Professor Clayton Christensen's work on sustaining innovation will find deeper insights into why cultures encourage innovation failure by emphasizing one way of working on issues.

If you just want to understand the lessons of why DEC was ultimately unsuccessful as an enterprise, you only need to read Gordon Bell's postscript in appendix e. Like every other computer company at the time, DEC and its leaders did not have an actionable understanding of the implications of the ongoing productivity advances in semiconductors and how nonengineers liked to interact with computers. Our firm did consulting for another computer maker in 1978 to look at how to outperform DEC, and the vulnerability to semiconductor trends was clear then . . . even before the personal computer became important.

The book fails to explain why DEC was so insulated from profit disciplines that drive so many other companies. During its heyday, DEC and its fellow computer makers enjoyed exceptionally high rates of repeat sales (well over 90%) to the same customers. The reason: Software written for one company's machine often wouldn't work on another company's machine. So customers were stuck. It cost too much and took too much time to rewrite all that code. So you would stay with a vendor who was no longer competent for quite a long time. The challenge in the closed systems world was to sell the first machine to a customer, and make it work. In the open systems environment, you have to compete for repeat sales. For DEC, that was like AT&T having to compete with other long-distance carriers after having had a monopoly for all of those years. Ultimate failure should not have been surprising.

Rather than learning more about DEC, I would suggest that you focus on studying current computing industry technology leaders who have been consistently able to adjust their business models such as Dell, Business Objects, Cisco, QLogic and EMC. They have processes in place that DEC never had, and it's hard to learn to succeed by looking at a company that lacked such a key process. Clearly, the lesson of DEC is that working on organizational development in a technology company without creating an ability to perform continuing business model innovation is a waste of time.

As I finished the book, I realized that those who are hoping that boards will use better governance to ensure that high technology companies prosper are being way too optimistic. Few boards can hope to know enough to even understand whether or not the company is working on the right questions.

The lasting lesson of DEC
MIT Sloan School of Management Professor Edgar Schein does a marvelous job telling the story of the rise and fall of Digital Equipment Corporation, the former #2 computer maker in the world behind IBM. The business reasons behind DEC's economic failure have been widely reported (missing the advent of the PC, having too many projects going at once, failure to market products effectively, etc.) However, the big question to be answered is why did these failures occur? To quote one passage, "Why did an organization that was wildly successful for thirty-five years, filled with intelligent, articulate powerful engineers and managers, fail to act effectively to deal with problems that were highly visible to everyone, both inside and outside the organization?"

Schein looks at DEC's failure through the lens of its corporate culture, and how it prohibited their executives from making the decisions, and taking the actions necessary to survive. Fans of Ed Schein will know his famous "Three Cultures of Management" paper, in which he describes the "Executive", "Line Manager" and "Engineering" cultures, all of which must exist and be balanced against one another for an organization to survive. Schein argues that DEC was dominated by the engineering culture, which valued innovation and "elegant" design, over profits and operational efficiency. This engineering culture dominated even the top levels of DEC, where proposals to build PCs out of off the shelf parts that were readily available in the marketplace, were shot down because the machines were thought to be junk compared to the ones DEC could build themselves.

That DEC was able to survive for as long as it did was largely attributable to its ability to innovate in a field that was so new it had not yet coalesced around certain standard systems, software and networks. However, as the computer industry became in effect a commodity market, and the buyers began to value price over innovation, DEC found itself increasingly unable, and in fact, unwilling to compete. The engineering culture which valued innovation and required creative freedom, did not want to subject itself to the requirements of being a commodity player which demanded autocratic operational efficiency and control over how resources were allocated.

Although DEC is now long gone, even readers who were too young to use computers at the time of its demise will find familiar truths in this book. As the old saying goes, the fish in the tank does not see the water it is in. Neither do we often see the cultures in which we are ourselves embedded. The real lesson of this wonderful book is to show us how our corporate cultures often prohibit us from doing the right things, even when we can see them clearly. Sometimes culture is most easily visible in the things you need to discuss, but that are simply "not on the table" for discussion.

There are many lessons here too, for companies that seek to innovate new products and services, and how to balance the creative freedom desired by the engineering culture with the "money gene" culture of sound executive management. The names of companies that have failed to realize the full financial benefits of their technical innovations is too long to list here. But the DEC story is a must read for anyone who seeks to balance innovation with sustainable economic success in any organization.

Outstanding work!
I am not certain as to how much of the previous reviewer's comments could be ascribed to a personal disagreement with Dr. Schein's book, but I found it to be a well-researched and soundly presented piece of writing documenting the rise and fall of one of the greatest innovators in the technology industry. In much of this research, the author has had to gain insights from others associated with DEC, and as such, views differ. In almost all of the cases, the author has clearly indicated that what he is presenting are the thoughts and experiences of others (in tandem with his own sentiments from his tenure at DEC). As such, viewpoints will always differ. In my opinion, this is a solid piece of writing that is insightful, thorough, and very well researched - and a damned fine read.

Missed the Mark
I may be a be prejudiced since Mr. Schein agreed to collaborate with me on this book (I was to write the technology section, which he apparently dropped) and then went back on his agreement when he ceased communicating with me after I did my part. That said, the coverage of the cultural aspects of DEC is reasonably good, but the authors miss the point entirely that DEC was merely a culture. Management malfeasance, technological gaffes, horrid marketing, and a centralization of power that defied the so-called "management martix" were equally responsible for the DECline. And have have two decades of journalistic, consulting, and analyst experience to back this up.

Still interested? Wait for the paperback, borrow a copy, or get it used! ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (4)

Terrific Book!
For anyone who has no idea but is curious about the gaming industry, then this is the book to get! For all I know ( for I am also a novice), this book covers everything about the world of gaming - game industry terminology, different game platforms, presenting concept ideas, receiving intellectual property. I know all that makes very little sense to a novice reader, but trust me, after reading this book, you'll know what I'm talking about. And for those already with jobs, but are hoping to make a career change into the gaming industry, this book provides encouraging yet practical advice on how to get started on achieving your goal. Simple things like what sort of education and internships. This book is also meant for those already in the gaming industry. It provides tips and advice on how to get your ideas on a distributor's list of possibilities and how to recieve as much credit for your idea's success. However, I'm not saying that with this book and this book alone will you be on your way to working for a major developer/distributor. The points made in this book are very blunt and straightforward. It'll explain how your love for games will be your only drive when forced to devote about 95% of your life to getting your game done on schedule. This book filters out the idealistic views of game-making to a practical cutthroat business where one minute you'll be recieving $70,000 pay for working on a game and the next being broke and out of the job and having to force an early release of the game which you've put so much time and energy into so that it can go to becoming one of the games that get sent into the discount bin. But that, with experience and determination, you may someday end up creating the next Half-Life or Call of Duty!!!

A Nice Book to read in your spare time
The best part of this book is a chapter that explains how a game goes from an idea to a finished product and even explains how games are marketed as well as recounting how much difficulty game programmers and artists have trying to meet milestones.

While I enjoyed the book I think it is more suited to people wanting to know how the game industry works and what the key players are instead of how to actually BREAK into the game industry.

It has some suggestions on how to make it big in the computer video game world but these are more common sense then anything, for example it suggests finding people that are in the business and becoming friends with them.

One thing that keeps this book above average is the countless tips from actual experts from big publishers and developers.
One thing this book will not tell you is what you should learn and what technologies are specifically involved in creating games. This is my one big gripe with the book. However other then that, I give this book 4 stars...

Finally!
Until I read this book the world of computer gaming seemed mysterious and impenetrable--an elite group of smart, young people having a great time at "work." Well, it's still clear that an elite group of smart people get to do this kind of work, but GAME PLAN shows you how to join them. Barajas, Gershenfeld and Loparco demystify the process of breaking into the game business and break it down into useful information, concrete steps and practical advice that anyone serious and dedicated can--and will want to--follow.

Finally, a book on how to break in to the Gaming Industry!
This book explains the gaming industry, beyond, how to program or the history of games. I have been interested in how the gaming industry works as a whole, and have not been able to find a book on it. I think this a great book for anyone interesting in working in the game industry. ... Read more

Book Description

Consumer electronics and computers redefined life and work in the twentieth century. In Inventing the Electronic Century, Pulitzer Prize-winning business historian Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. traces their origins and worldwide development. From electronics prime mover RCA in the 1920s to Sony and Matsushita's dramatic rise in the 1970s; from IBM's dominance in computer technology in the 1950s to Microsoft's stunning example of the creation of competitive advantage, this masterful analysis is essential reading for every manager and student of technology. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The brilliant strategy of the Japanese Companies...
Alfred Chandler has organized the factual information of the key companies in the Consumer Electronics and Computer Industries during the second half of the XX century. The title of my review is a suggestion of another apropriate subtitle of this book.

The subject is very complex, specially if we look at the technology involved. My major comment is: the author has a limited technical knowledge and this has limited the depth of his analyses, comments and conclusions. This does not invalidate the major conclusions that he has presented in this book.

I think that it would be interesting to expand the story told in this book by studying/describing the evolution of the whole envinronment around these industries, including the engineering schools and research institutes that supply the brains to develop all the technology involved.

The history of the electronics industry carry an important lesson, about concentration of skills and economic power in only one company (RCA). It was a good thing, while RCA was leading, but when it started to make major strategic mistakes it brought down the whole American Industry. The Japanese Industry used several companies to compete against American and European Companies, this created a whole envinronment, that included engineering schools, research facilities, several different companies where one could make a career and different ideas being tested and pursued at the same time. When you look at the capacity of inovation and development of new technologies of the japanese companies and their envinronment they were a lot more competitive. They created a competitive envinronment so agressive in Japan that western rivals were later decimated by them.

The lesson hidden in the history of the electronics industry is very important, when we look at the industrial policy in America in other industries, like Automobiles, where there is only two American Manufacturers, it is easy to see why Japanese companies are doing much better, they are following the same type of competitive organization in this industry... Ford and GM are going in the same direction of RCA... This will raise a very important question, in what industries does America plans to remain competitive in the future??? This will determine the long term stability of the American Democracy.

One may criticize the quality of this book, but the history told in this book should be understood and deserves attention.

One aspect related to the industries studied that should be brought to attention is the availability of information about the japanese industry due to the language barrier.

... Read more

Reviews (7)

Gentlemen, start your businesses!
As a business owner, I am quite pleased with the information I was able to extract from this book.

It will not make you rich overnight, but it will explain patiently the unique challenges of starting and operating an Internet-based business.

Not all ideas are VC-worthy and this book describes the basic VC premises.

The case studies are quite in-depth and definitely will help you avoid same mistakes. The author does not shy away from early failures and fatal choices of wrong business partners.

In short, you'll enjoy the book and learn many things. I highly recommend it to any enterpreneur.

Don't buy this book
This book should be titled - "I got lucky with a web site in the '90s"

His title suggests that he has insight into how one could use true bootstrap techniques to get a company started. Yet, in one of his ten or fifeteen bullets about how to start a business successfully, he discusses the topic "when to line up funding". How under the radar is that?!

I would have been more impressed to learn that Mr Kling understood and articulated how to start a business using founding customers or how he worked the corporate banking system to gain access to lines of credit. I think Homefair was a great idea, but 99% of most net businesses today can not be started that cheaply. Same goes for the dozens of Web Design Firms he cites as success stories (Most were bought by companies like IXL, USWeb (Which became MarchFirst), Homestore and where all know where these have ended up.

I could continue about the lack of flow or organization in the book itself but I feel the description of lack of useful content is plenty for this review. I was truly disappointed with this book.

Wish I had this when I started my first net business
Twenty-five case studies of businesses that started without venture capital on the Internet, how they grew and what sorts of problems they ran into along the way.(Case no. 19 is about MSEN, the ISP I was involved in in 1991-1995, and I was interviewed for the book.) A well-researched book on lots of issues facing the small internet business, made even more relevant by the drying up of venture capital.

Mandatory startup business reading
Arnold Kling is right on.

The examples and suggestions provide business guideposts to starting and growing an innovative company on the Internet. Under the radar is that vast space of million and multi-million dollar niches that don't qualify for the VC or IPO. This is the space where we can do well for others, make money, and not get trampled by the elephants. The area that Arnold Kling describes is even riper since the dot com bubble broke.

Buy this book for the chapter about the economics of VC financing alone. It is a clear short demonstration of why VC financing is unsuitable for the majority of startups (and perhaps is a quick way ruin a good thing).

Get some experience without having to live through it all.

I'm biased, but...
I am one of the featured case studies in "Under the Radar," so you could say I'm biased. That said, I *really* wish this book had been available when I started my first Internet company. It has lots of great "from the trenches" advice, from developing your strategy to recruiting the right people to courting investors to designing your web site to... you get the picture.

The only quibble I have is at the very end, when the author suggests that technology and statistics may open up the investment pool to "Under the Radar" companies by allowing investors to better manage risk (i.e. make investment decision on more than just "gut feel"). That may be so, but his examples -- a computer that can beat the world's best Othello player, automated underwriting of consumer loans -- are less than persuasive because they deal with relatively simple problem sets (winning a game based on probability, making a loan based on a few easily defined credit characteristics). The profile of a successful startup contains many, many hard-to-quantify attributes (including luck) and they are often mutually exclusive. For example, as an investor do you look for a charismatic CEO like Steve Jobs or a reclusive techno-genius like Seymour Cray? The answer is both. I suspect we're a long way away from a reasonably reliable system for predicting startup success. (Witness the stock market, where the majority of professional fund managers fail to outperform the averages even though they have a wealth of data and modeling technologies at their disposal.)

But this is just a quibble, and an irrelevant one at that. The focus of this book is how to start a successful business, not picking winners and losers. Whether you're already on your third Internet business or just thinking about making the leap for the first time, this book is a must read. ... Read more