Book Description

This work is a compilation of those attributes, sales/marketing fundamentals and techniques required for the present as well as future Professional computer networking salesperson for the year 2001 and beyond. It takes the reader through the spectrum of professional selling. ... Read more

Book Description

Described as "the Dave Berry of dotcom," marketing/media mercenary Chris Clark casts a jaundiced eye on the frolics and foibles of the self-styled "New Economy" in Transfer Error, a compilation of his essays and columns first published in MC (Marketing Computers) magazine between 1997 and 2001.

From the Razor-infested hallways of Microsoft's Redmond campus to the blue-blazer bunkers of IBM's Armonk headquarters, from Silicon Alley to Ally McBeal, from the meltdown of Netscape to the rapture of Napster, Clark escorts his readers on a highly-caffeinated romp through the very recent past in a style that's equal parts savvy, smart and silly.

Transfer Error is the ideal business book for anyone who thinks Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy should be cast as Cartman in the live-action version of South Park, or wishes Hunter S. Thompson had written Burn Rate. ... Read more

Book Description

"Moths to the Flame is a heady mixture of futuristic prophecy and historical perspective covering all aspects of computer technology, some frightening, some practical, some fanciful. . . . Intelligent lay readers will find that Rawlins...is plenty smart without being obscurantist." -- Publishers Weekly

In Moths to the Flame, Gregory Rawlins takes us on a humorous yet thought-provoking tour of the world wrought by modern technology.

The book's first four chapters explore the worlds of privacy, virtual reality, publishing, and computer networks, while the last four focus on social issues such as warfare, jobs, computer catastrophes, and the future itself. Throughout, eye-opening historical comparisons give a context for the computer age, showing how new technologies have always bred hope and resistance. Provocative yet balanced and sophisticated, Moths to the Flame is an indispensable guidebook to the future. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

An unengaging read.
In the preface, the author poses many naturally interesting questions like "Who will become the information aristocracy and who will becomes the infoserfs of the next generation?". The book proper, however, doesn't do much to answer them.

Primarily, the author rambles on vaguely about the possible synergy between humans and computers/robots in the near future. He also highlights the challenges that the complexity of recent and future technologies pose. There do appear some interspersed interesting tidbits, as well. But, in the end, this book is not really thought-provoking. If you are even moderately aware of modern technologies that pervade human societies in developed economies, you will not gather any novel impressions from this book.

What's wrong
Hey, I'm only half way through it but I'm loving this book.What's wrong with me?I found his chapter on e-books and publishing to be right on the mark and couldn't help but think of Napster when he talks about "dinosaur killers" in chapter 3, and Stephen Kings recent e-Book offering.I even double checked the publishing date as the book seems so current.

Sure he is not as deep here as Postman or Roszak, but if you want an entertaining book you will buzz through in a couple of hours, get it.

Painfully Trite
"For two decades now I've been awaiting a book explaining computers and their social consequences to literate readers," claims the author.Readers with similar hopes will not find satisfaction in this book. Rather, Rawlins casually addresses important issues concerning the role ofcomputers concerning privacy, war, and poverty with no apparent insights orsolutions.His descriptions of technologies are insultingly simplistic;one wonders if an average high-school student might have more interestingviews on computers.This book's lack of footnotes and bibliography addssupport to this reader's suspicion that the author just wrote down whatevercame to mind.If Rawlins still wonders about computers and "theirsocial consequences," he might try reading Niel Postman's"Technopoly" or any of the brilliant works of Theodore Roszak.

A poor treatment of a serious topic
There are a lot of reasons for thoughtful concern about the proliferation of computer technology in our society.Invasions of privacy, loss of contact with our fellow beings, etc., are all very valid concerns!To his credit, the author (obviously a well-accomplished professional in the computer science area) raises these perhaps unpopular themes.However, having once raised the issues he does not follow through with sound analyses of the problems and recommendations for their amelioration.Frankly, some of what he has to say comes across as barely thought out and silly.At one point he discusses a particular negative ramification of computer technology (I don't have the book in front of me so I cannot be certain which one it is.He describes the problem, indicates that it may have an adverse effect on us, and concludes that the presence of the problem has many implications, and then drops it.I, personally, would have liked to have known what some of those implications are!The whole book looks like it was written too fast and edited poorly.Save your money. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

"Use the Source, Luke!"
This famous line borrowed of course from "Star Wars" is part of the battle cry that most advocates of so-called "Open Source Software" like to use and this book further examines this phenemenon. Whether or not Microsoft regards Linux (the most famous example of open source software) as a legitimate threat is an opinion best left to anyone reading it. Free for All in the early chapters compares the "open source movement" to the "1960s era" when there were those who felt the world could be a better place just by sharing the wealth among everyone. Another intriguing comparison is how some compare "open source" to a form of "communism!"

Free For All describes some of the "history" of the Open Source movement, items like BSD (and its legal battle with AT&T), how Bill Joy came to invent the Vi text editor and how Richard Stallman invented the Emacs screen editor. But it also details of course how a Finnish programmer named Linus Torvalds came to invent Linux, which Mircosoft seems to regard as some kind of "threat" to Windows. While Microsoft's share of the PC market is overwhelming (aproximately 85%), there are those opting for the "penguin" on their PC. It also opines that the open source movement may now be at a crossroads, does it get too big and start charging for its software or does it remain "free?"

There's also a glossary of open source terms at the back of the book that explains to "non-techies" some of the "buzz words" of open source, something I found helpful in explaining the movement.

This book is a fascinating look at how the open source software movement has and may yet continue to change how software is marketed.

Potential for Virtuous Cycles of Prosperity through Freeware
Peter Wayner does an outstanding job of looking at the history of the free software movement in this thoughtful, thorough book. Unlike other books about technology that refer to freeware (free software) as an example, Wayner looks directly at the phenomenon to evaluate its significance, the potential for the future, and why it works. I was especially impressed by the way he combined perspectives: historical, competitive, psychological, user needs, financial, resource, and wealth. Each one tells you something you need to know about this important area.

At first, my reaction was that this book would be only of interest to those who do not know much about freeware. Having read the whole book and thought more about it, I think the lessons here are probably just as pertinent for those who are active in the freeware movement. For Wayner is really addressing the long-term viability of what is needed to succeed. Many challenges are still ahead. For example, he notes that "the daily struggle for some form of income is one of the greatest challenges in the free source world today." These are the Minutemen of the Knowledge Age, doing other work to keep a roof over their heads and fighting for better software in all of their free time.

I especially enjoyed the many profiles of people who are involved with freeware in humble, altruistic ways. In an age described by many as greedy and self-obsessed with momentary pleasures, many of these people are the sort of independent thinkers and doers who originally established the United States and made our modern lives of freedom possible. We should all salute them!

The basic argument is that openly-developed freeware is an effective model for accelerating the rate of technological and human development in using data processing and electronic communications. For example, over half the Web servers run on open source software because it works better. You can create a supercomputer for $3,000 using open source freeware. The freeware model works because users draw attention faster to glitches (and bugs), and talented, caring people who are interested in solutions are drawn to creating rapid fixes. There is fame, reputation, and notoriety available for doing this free software work -- as well as tangible benefits in getting one's own tasks done faster and better. It is basically an argument based on complexity science and chaos theory, but built on the actual experiences of the software built from the original UNIX base at Berkeley and the Linux operating system.

One of the intriguing contrasts that is drawn is between the Microsoft development and marketing approach and the one for freeware. This is also characterized as the suits against the nerds. Wayner also points out that many mixed models are also developing. Red Hat offers Linux for those who want some better documentation and some support for a price. Hardware makers are starting to support freeware development activities.

Wayner does a good job of overcoming labels that often seem to be misapplied. He explains that Linus Torvalds really focuses now on the kernel of Linux rather than all of its aspects, and the choices that Torvalds made which allowed Linux to become so powerful. He also shows the detailed views of important people in the development of freeware such as Richard Stallman (author of the GNU Manifesto). The history of disputes among those involved in freeware are fascinating, such as the way that the AT&T lawsuit against Berkeley slowed down the development of BSD (Berkeley Software Development) so that it lags behind Linux in numbers of people using its freeware.

From reading this book, I had the sense that something even more important is at stake here. I suspect that the freeware movement is actually creating a new and improved paradigm for acclerating human progress which can be applied in many other fields of knowledge. As Wayner points out, however, this is in some ways merely a reversion to the historical intellectual model of universities freely sharing knowledge for the benefit of all. That model has not usually been applied to creating commercial significant products and services directly. Perhaps the day has come for that to happen with the connectivity of the Internet to help us.

Overcome your disbelief stall that existing methods of innovation will always dominate!

Some good info
Some brief history, albeit disorganized, accompanied by rambling editorials about free beer and communism.

Fascinating topic, boring book
As the subject header says, the topic is quite fascinating, but this book just didn't do it for me. It does not make for a compelling narrative, the way the author chose to structure the book. To technically oriented people it may read better, but not being one I couldn't possibly tell. For the non-technical person, it does not make a terribly interesting read. And there is no narrative to follow whatsoever and no linear story either.

Poorly written introduction to story of Linux
As someone who is very familiar with the free software movement, I may be unduly critical of this book. My major criticism of _Free For All_ is the organization and writing tone. For the newbie it is too folksy, using really stretched analogies and attempted witticisms to explain a phenomenon that is extremely interesting on its own terms. This is NY Times Magazine-style writing that has little faith in the readers' attention spans or intelligence. For the reader who knows a bit about free software, it simply does not add anything new. Some parts held m y interest, and I give Wayner credit for seeing the most significant aspects of Linux: the GPL, the "bazaar" style of programming, and intellectual property concerns. His conclusions, though, need much more work. Citing Gilder, for example, as a spokesman for some type of "wise capitalism" stuck in my craw--the best thing about free software is that it recognizes the innumerable debts programmers have to previous programmers and the many people globally who contribute to its development, so it is everyone's property and free information. The problem Wayner points to, in which programmers are making little money from their efforts, is not the fault of the GPL. It lies with some of the foundations of the current intellectual property system. ... Read more

Book Description

Since its first volume in 1960, Advances in Computers has presented detailed coverage of innovations in hardware and software and in computer theory, design, and applications. It has also provided contributors with a medium in which they can examine their subjects in greater depth and breadth than that allowed by standard journal articles. As a result, many articles have become standard references that continue to be of significant, lasting value despite the rapid growth taking place in the field.
Volume 47 contains seven chapters. The first four cover artificial intelligence, which is the use of technology to perform tasks generally assumed to require human thinking. These chapters present natural language processing, visualization, and self-replication as machine implementations of human activities. The remaining three chapters cover other recent advances that are important to the information processing field. ... Read more

Book Description

By 2002, all but a handful of countries were connected to the Internet. The intertwining of the Internet and the globalization of finance, corporate governance, and trade raises questions about national models of technology development and property rights. The sudden ability of hundreds of millions of users to gain access to a global communication infrastructure spurred the creation of new firms and economic opportunities. The Internet challenged existing institutions and powerful interests: Technology was global, but its economic and business development was molded in the context of prevailing national institutions.

Comparing the experiences of seven countries -- France, Germany, India, Japan, Sweden, South Korea, and the United States -- this book analyzes the rise of the Internet and its impact on changing national institutions. Each country chapter describes how the Internet developed, evaluates the extent to which the Silicon Valley model was adopted, and suggests why certain sectors and technologies developed faster than others. The book also analyzes specific Internet sectors and regulations across countries. It shows that the Internet's effects are more evolutionary than revolutionary. At the same time, the impact of broad cultural change on entrepreneurial aspirations is clearly visible in certain nations, especially India and Sweden. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Good coverage of 7 countries
Bruce Kogut did a fine job as an editor. However, the linkages between each chapter is not there. This book gives in-depth view of the seven countries: France, Germany, India, Japan, S. Korea, Sweden, USA, on their IT infrastructure, success and failure stories. It is difficult to find a good text for a college course "Global E Commerce" that I developed. This book is about as good as I can get. Most E-commerce books use American Ebay and Amazon as only success models, never discussed any one else. The students seem to like the book after I add Global E-Commerce materials, such as 56 in-land Europe discount airlines, 10 European countries effort to join European Union on May 1, 2004.... This is the result of my own research by traveling to 43 foreign coutries outside of USA. The book will be much better if CASE studies are included in wanadoo.com, nttdocomo.com, Neuer market.... Ireland and UK are not included, turned out to be a major drawback in this book.

A rear-mirror view of the Internet Economy
This is an excellent history of the Internet Economy and as such highly recommended. Without no doubt one of the best history books available.

The book is somewhat difficult to evaluate because the topics covered are so broad. The book describes how things did happen. But it does not try to predict or construct the future. It must be compared to Moschella's Customer Driven IT which identifies the challenges of the innovation system and draws a different scenario.

The deregulation and disintegration of the hierarchical telecommunications industry to free market based structure is described in this book as in some others. When the e-commerce did not catch up to the degree originally expected, Internet is paradoxically heralded as a remarkable social success, with rapid global penetration, but largely a business failure (Kogut, page 438). But this claim - like a typical market research - focuses on revenue generation and reintermediation, and does not recognize the intermediate form between hierarchy and market, the networked process and related disintermediation. In The Global Internet Economy, this comes as some kind of an afterthought:

"A primary effect of the Internet has been to render the back-office operations, such as customer service, more efficiently. These activities were not captured in the definitions of B2B and B2C but may in fact constitute the bulk of the explanation for the increase in productivity observed in the 1990s" (Kogut, page 443).

From consumer perspective, Internet may substitute or streamline many key everyday processes, such as going to library, or to look at prices in the shops, or buying tickets or paying bills. It is this convenience value is undervalued in Internet productivity statistics (Kogut, page 459).

This is the third phase in the formation process of an industry. In the first, pre-commercial and early commercial phases government and universities played vital roles. In the second phase, venture capital (with the ease of exit provided by new technology-oriented stock exchanges) was the midwife for creation of the industry, and in the third phase large firms were able to integrate the techniques into their technological toolkit (Kenney, pages 69-70).

"The U.S. institution of venture capital played a central role in the rapid formation of new dedicated Internet firms that were established to define and occupy the new economic space" (Kenney, page 70). Almost 90 % of venture capital in the latter half of the 1990s vent to Internet-related companies (Kogut, page 446).

As a summary, this book is about history. Now when we are in that "third phase" we need scenarios and roadmaps for the future, but the book does not try to synthesize these. ... Read more

Book Description

Business? Yes. Technology? Yes. The convergence of the two—absolutely!

However, Silicon Stories encompasses significantly more. Leyva discusses the new social contract and connects the dots between business, technology, art and popular culture with a combination of clarity and eloquence that both informs and surprises.

Need to understand why the software-centric enterprise will dominate the future, and, at the same time, are you in dire need of a fresh perspective on why most software projects fail to deliver on the promised value proposition? Despite the diatribes written by the proponents of the productivity paradox, software will continue to be the prime mover in the endless pursuit of competitive advantage by corporations both large and small. However, if software is to deliver on its promises, it must be viewed, developed, managed and delivered in an entirely different manner.

Silicon Stories is powerful, informative, inspirational, irreverent, and at times downright funny, while shining a new light on the convergence of business and technology in a manner that is analytically profound yet completely accessible to the non-technologist. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Entertaining, Informative, and Humorous!
I am an avid user of computers at home and use them extensively at work as a Paramedic. I read this book based on a recommendation from a friend and found it interesting, funny, and containing lots of useful information about the software industry and the geeks down the hall.

I highly recommend it even for the non-technologist, of course the geeks among you will be able to better appreciate the finer points. The illustrations are awesome and add unique insight to the author's words as they are drawn by his wife who shared in most of the personal experiences he describes.

Troy ... Read more

Book Description

How will low-income communities be affected by the waves of social, economic, political, and cultural change that surround the new information technologies? How can we influence the outcome? This action-oriented book identifies the key issues, explores the evidence, and suggests some answers. Avoiding both utopianism and despair, the book presents the voices of technology enthusiasts and skeptics, as well as social activists.

The book is organized into three parts. Part I examines the issues in their socio-technical, economic, and historical contexts. Part II--the core of the book--proposes five initiatives for using computers and electronic communications to benefit low-income urban communities:

to provide access to the new technologies in ways that enable low-income people to become active producers rather than passive users;

to use the new technologies to improve the dialogue between public agencies and low-income neighborhoods;

to help low-income youth to exploit the entrepreneurial potential of information technologies;

to develop approaches to education that take advantage of the educational capabilities of the computer;

to promote the community computer: applications of computers and communications technology that foster community development. Part III presents a synthesis of the various topics. Its main questions are, What are the prospects and problems of initiatives to enable the poor to benefit from the new technologies? and What federal, state, and municipal policies would enhance the prospects for success?

Contributors: Alice Amsden, Jeanne Bamberger, Anne Beamish, Manuel Castells, Joseph Ferreira, Peter Hall, Leo Marx, William J. Mitchell, Mitchel Resnick, Bish Sanyal, Donald A. Schön, Alan and Michelle Shaw, Michael Shiffer, Bruno Tardieu, Sherry Turkle, Julian Wolpert ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Good compilation of articles from many different view points
High Technology and Low-Income Communities Prospects for the positive Use of Advanced Information Technology

This book is a good compilation of articles by people from many different fields with a common goal- that is "to answer two basic questions:

1) How will information technology (and the changes that it brings about in all spheres of life) affect the low-income communities ?

2) How can we (including the low-income communities) influence the outcome ? "

The book is aimed towards "proving a synthesis between the academician's theoretical and formal knowledge with practice-based, fine-grained wisdom of the activists, to generate innovative policy suggestions."

It begins with a general "examination of the various issues in their socio-technical, economical and historical contexts", sometimes in an intuitive and futuristic way and sometimes through a complete statistical analysis of existing data. The general tone in this respect swings from major 'technology enthusiasm to complete skepticism', and then on to a more balanced view. This view does not see the technology as a whole-soul saviour, but more as a medium to change; since physical world and the electronic world are not separate, but actually "inter-twined and can substitute or complement one another as per requirements, circumstances and contexts." It emphasizes one fact time and again, which is becoming clearer every passing day, and that is, that on its own poverty and technology complete a vicious cycle (not today but since ever!), where due to poverty people face low exposure to technology and its benefits; and low access to technology leads to further downward mobility. It prophecises that the way out is not in one single hand, but more in different agencies working together hand in hand (including the government and the low-income communities themselves).

The next part of the book, which is also the core of the book, presents a style of policy-making (rather than the finished blueprint) for what can be done to improve the present situation, along with some good examples from the real-life. It addresses many interesting issues related to low-income communities such as:

- The high cost of connection and 'appliances' to connect to the world versus the real need. - The vicious cycle between low networking in low-income communities and low number of users from these areas on the net. - Need for appropriate software and interface, which is easy and attractive to use. - Need to promote new technologies in ways that enable people to become not just 'passive consumers' but 'active producers', as well as to aid entrepreneurship in these areas (to aid economic development which in the longer run can affect the whole community as well). - Need for using technology to create transparency between public agencies and low-income neighbourhoods. - Need for applying the computer and the IT to aid better dialogue between the community especially through the concept of 'community computer'. Also to see Internet as a big canvas which can be extended by contributions from every individual of the community. - Need to include the low-income communities as well, for structuring and designing things and policies for their own development. - Need to provide skills and motivation to the people of the community, so that they find it worth to invest their time and effort into the whole process of change. - Need to create a distinction between 'knowledge' and 'information', especially in reference to policy-making and community programs. - Need to develop a totally new approach to education aimed especially at the people who grow-up in low-income neighbourhoods.

The main emphasis of the book is on the last issue, which receives a common consensus from all the authors. There is a general opinion that education is the main tool through which something can be done to elevate the 'digital divide'. It needs to include not only the children of the community but the parents as well, since education really starts from home and a lot of boost for learning needs to come from home as well. It must also be introduced into the prisons where a good part of the community (especially in reference to American low-income neighbourhoods) spends their time. The present state of education in all the schools which cater to these children seems to be extremely poor, not just in terms of equipment but also in terms of teachers and teaching methodology, as well as in the course content which is most often very bland and sterile. New system needs to be developed where the computer can be used for its educational capabilities since technology in itself is meaningless unless designed for an application. Since it is usually seen that people who grow up in poverty, unstable and unpredictable world are most often virtuosos at building and fixing complicated things but tend to score very low when dealing with conventional symbolic expressions like numbers, graphs, simple calculations and written language, there is a need to make them learn more through extracting principles from the successful workings of the objects that they make. At this point the computer comes into picture, since it can be a very good medium to link symbols with actions since symbolic descriptions in a computer can turn into an action or an object immediately. This way it can be used to teach and enstrengthen existing concepts. It can play a very special role as a resource for inquiry and invention at the child's 'own pace' and in his 'own space'. This also looks into the aspect of special needs of some children whose life is already moving at a very fast pace and who hence need to slow-down a bit in their own learning process.

The last part of the book presents a synthesis of various topics. It discusses the prospects and problems of initiatives aimed at elevating the poor with the help of new technologies. Also it offers a few suggestions for policy making at various levels, such that they can be more effective. It acknowledges the big gap, which still exists between the academics and the activists, but also extracts "the common points of agreement under five different headings-" - The unique characteristics of the digital revolution, that is its interactive potential and its decentralizing nature, offering the poor a new set of opportunities for social and economic integration. - The universal access to IT is essential and if left to the market mechanisms will never be a reality for the low-income communities, unless given an impetus by the government. (especially in the development of the social sphere) - The inadequacy of the existing government policies regarding IT and universal access. - A proposal of policies necessary for channeling IT's benefits towards low-income areas, laying special stress on the fact that IT is no substitute for Social Policy and that planning must begin at the grass-root level. - Some ideas about what kind of research is necessary to devise policies sensitive to the particular needs of the poor.

The book ends with a very positive note of "What's Next?", and reframes the objectives that it began with, into : " Given an intention to achieve a certain kind of benefit for low-income people, or to help them achieve a benefit for themselves, how might a variant of the multifaceted technology serve the purpose."

On the whole the book is a good 'Food for Thought', and sets one thinking about such an important and yet 'insignificant' aspect of IT and sets one rethinking about what one does with this powerful tool. ... Read more

Book Description

To understand the magnitude of Bill Gates, one must first understand the people who hate him, most of whom suffer from an acute case of "Bill Envy."

The Plot to Get Bill Gates is the true, hilarious story of a loosely knit cabal of Silicon Valley's wealthiest and most successful leaders and their quest to defeat the richest man in the world. These leaders are known within Microsoft as Captain Ahab's Club for their self-destructive fixation with harpooning the Great White Whale of Redmond, all two hundred pounds and $50 billion of him. Acclaimed journalist Gary Rivlin tells their tale as a high-tech variation on Moby-Dick, and by taking us deep inside the world of Gates and his enemies, he vividly reveals their consuming obsession.

Lead players in The Plot are Lawrence Ellison of Oracle, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems, Ray Noorda of Novell, Marc Andreessen and James Barksdale of Netscape, Philippe Kahn of Borland, and Gary Kildall (the unsung programmer who could have been Gates), with special guest appearances by venture capitalist John Doerr, consumer activist Ralph Nader, zealous attorney Gary Reback, and the Fraternal Order of Antitrust Lawyers. The author describes each man's ill-fated attempt at besting Gates, who seems to become bigger, hungrier, and more dangerous after each attack.

Rivlin also conducts an in-depth investigation of Gates himself, examining each crucial step in the ascension of the slope-shouldered billionaire with bad hair and unearthing the most telling details to explain why Gates is so rich and we aren't. (The short answer: monomania.) Rivlin concludes with an illuminating analysis of Microsoft's latest upgrade of its CEO, Gates 3.1, which seems to be operating with fewer bugs than previous incarnations.

Gary Rivlin's reporting is irreverent and intellectually independent, free of the romanticized portraits and techno-hype perpetuated by many in the media. As an award-winning political reporter, he brings a fresh perspective to the avaricious, bloodthirsty behavior of these new icons. The result is a savagely funny morality play about big business at the century's end.
... Read more

Reviews (24)

All the ingrediants of a great novel -- but true!
Finally someone has written a book that captures the human drama of the computer wars and the generals who have fought it. For someone who only uses a computer (fully equiped with Microsoft products) and only vaguely remembers names like WordPerfect, Borland, and Novell, I had no idea the world of technology geeks could be filled with such tragedy, hilarity, macho, shallowness, casualties, and intrigue. From Bill Gates' tragic squeezing of his own friend and partner, to Sun Microsystem's Chief Technology Officer being mocked by a "Terminator" pin ball machine repeating "hasta la vista, baby" during pep talks to his staff, to the facial ticks that plaqued the developers of Java, this book captures the icons of our era in their all too human glory. Not since "A Civil Action" have I read a work of non-fiction so captivating.

Well written "tell all" book
Reading this book makes me wonder if the climate around the "robber barons" was so intense. Without a doubt, Bill Gates has become the focus of admiration and ire throughout the computer industry. This book attempts to answer the question "why?".

Few come out of this work unscathed by the unflattering portrayal Rivlin gives computer industry heavys. Gates is scrutinized intensely in the beginning of the book, during the rapid ascent of Microsoft, but the vast majority of the book concerns itself with "the people who hate him." Leaders from giants Novell, Oracle, Wordperfect, and others are reduced to defining themselves by what they are not: Bill Gates.

For whatever reason, only two women discussed (Heidi Roisen and Kim Polese) are portrayed in a mildly positive light. Perhaps all this just comes down to testosterone after all.

The book contains an interesting history about products as well as people: OS/2, MS Word, Excel, NetWare, and, of course Windows. There is a particularly long description of the genesis of Java, perhaps the only thing Gates has not been able to either crush, co-opt, or corrupt. Java's story alone is worth the price of the book.

Tell-all books rarely deserve more than a middle-of-the-road rating. However, this one was well written enough and well researched enough to "sneak up" to a four-star assessment. For those interested in the subject, this book is well worth your time.

The battle of the Network Computer (NC)
The most interesting significant dialogue in the book focused around the battle between Oracle's Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, on the subject of the network computer (NC). Gates was so competitive, the author points out Gates dated Ellison's ex-wife, that's sick! Gates personal life is appalling. Don't get caught up in Gates personal life, however, disgusing; look instead at the company - he built.

Ellision marketed NC as the window operating system killer. The battle became a marketing and Public Relations battle more than a technology feasiblity battle. NC technology over credited the consumer burden of a supposedly costly operating system. In reality the windows operating system cost only a very small portion of the PC cost. PC technology invested billions to research and development. Such that, Intel and AMD research and development increased computational power, decreased cost, and PC components were more integratable. IBM technology reduce cost for harddrives and increased storage capacity. The PC component assembly standardized allowing various components to work together. Different manufacturers produced the mother boards, memory chips, and CPUs. Shifts in technology manufacturing to Asia reduced operating costs. Bill Gates did not believe the NC would replace the windows operating system. Gates more correctly access the pulse of the customer which was richer sets of business functionality. Consumers had become accustomed to powerful desktop applications.

At the same time desktop PCs were becoming a common and expected business expense, PC technology was proving to be an acceptable server technology running business great plains financials, sql server, exchange server, merchant server, and .net middleware applications.
Windows weakeness in massive parallel processing has been gaining in strength with each new generation of operating system. Unix had a twenty year head start in the area of symetrically parallel processing, however, Microsoft will become the leader in this field.

Software price barriers for small too medium size businesses were removed giving them affordable software and hardware infrastructures, offer by PC technology and Microsoft. Microsoft respond back too NC threat by a few of their own PR tactics. However, in the end the PC itself attracted consumers to continue buying.

On tactic was the acquistion of WebTV. Microsoft spent $420 million to buy WebTV. The first time, I saw WebTV, it didn't seem that impressive. However, consider this, as fiber optic technology investment increases and provides infrastructure for massive data bandwidth increases equal to 100,000 times modem bandwidth than Web application support becomes the bottle neck. Which company will build the software to control the information? Will the java based companies control the information or will the dot net companies? My bet is dot net technology will be the developers choice.

The WinTel PC technology is gaining more strength and effectiveness and considered as reliable servers. The benchmark must be value returned and cost per user. Why doesn't Microsoft build a dot net framework for Unix? I believe because it is unnecessary. Microsoft next generation of Operating system will scalable and powerful enough to run enterprise scale applications. Many ERP companies are realizing this shift. The investment in software development will converge on this fact and dot will experience rapid acceleration of momentum. The NC paradim was doomed because - it didn't match reality. I like the mainframe concept of change it once and effect all the users. The dot net framework provides the equivalent concept, fantasic!

Development training and marketing has always been a strong trait of Microsoft. Technology is Microsoft's religion. 100 hour weeks, with sleeping back hanging on the door, break rooms without tables, fat content food distributed as incentives to continue working, and the desire to dominate every techology sector. Gates established a culture of paronia, where every competitor was a real threat. Developers worked late into the evening and start early in the morning. Gates slept better if they worked late. The end result was a trememous amount of business functionality translating into wealth. The plot to get Bill Gates is much more about a plot to develop a capalistic culture producing jobs, wealth, and empowering the worker into a knowledge worker instead of a corporate cog.

Visual Studio.net and particularly Internet technologies have shifted strength to Microsoft development technology. C# will takeover java technology. The technology infrastructure is richer and eventually more large companies will abandon java for c#. The microsoft technology is far superior. The PC technology is more powerful. Microsoft is moving fast. The media underestimates their force.

Fiber optics will only increase the demand for more software development. Standardized APIs will empower developers to create more areas of business functionality reducing the cost of business. Voice, video, and data information will be transport over very fast network communication lines. You can bet on the fact that Microsoft technology will run the middleware guaranteeing integrated systems maintain their integrity. The dot net framework simplified component management and allow leveraging of object across multiple network computers. In the past DLL hell made Microsoft windows too complex. The dot net framework greatly simplifies the problems of managing components.

sad but true
Alternately amusing a frightening account of our contemporary robber barons. Manages to convey developments in the software industry over the past two decades through personality profiles. Reaches its high point (or low point depending on one's perspective) with Rivlin's contention that Microsoft's Bill Gates suffers from a mild form of autism, which explains his extraordinary talents in certain dimensions and his apparent utter lack of any basic interpersonal or social consciousness or awareness.

Don't Judge this Book By Its Cover
Despite a sensationalistic title and a poorly designed cover, The Plot to Get Bill Gates is a wonderful piece of reporting. Rivlin, while an obvious admirer of the technology tycoons, presents a fairly unbiased (though tilting a little in favor of Bill Gates) story about the growth of Microsoft, the computer industry in general, and the ever growing group of anti-Microsoft competitors. It does a very good job of describing all the players in this game, following the industry for the past twenty years, and explaining the technology so even computer illiterates like myself can understand. Rivlin obviously did a tremendous amount of research, interviewed hundreds of technologists, and really put his findings together well. This book is well written (though the flow is sometimes interrupted when Rivlin seems to remember something he forgot to add earlier and makes a long tangent out of it), very interesting (though nothing terribly original is presented if you are well acquainted with the technology industry), and entertaining. I would highly recommend it for people who want to learn more about Gates, other technology tycoons, the technology industry, or just want a look at how competitive companies operate and interact. ... Read more

Book Description

chronicles the pervasive and indiscriminate use of computer terminology, especially as it is applied to situations that have nothing to do with technology ... Read more

Reviews (2)

insightful book
this book does very well at helping us understand computer lingo, though it might be slightly over the head of some people. A highly original book

Very long winded with little to recommend it
This book offered so much and delivered very little. If you're looking to discover why "byte" is spelt the way it is or where the term originated from, you won't find it here.

Unless you are well coached in the babble of English Lit then a lot of Barry's prose will go right over your head. He seems to have received most of his information from the Random House Unabridged Dictionary - every second pages seems to quote from it. If I were interested in what Random House had to say then I would have bought their dictionary and not this book!

Don't bother looking here for lively and interesting tales about how various words came to be, instead have a look at such books as Hackers, Digital Deli, The Devouing Fungus, The Naked Computer, and The Hackers Dictionary. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

a classic example of mismeasurement due to category error
This report represents a classic example of limited inquiry in academic pursuits by relentlessly ignoring category error (insufficient definitions) as challenged since the early '90s by Mandel (Businessweek 5/18/94) and others (Edupage 2/21/95). It is now finally contradicted by the NAICS data (USA Today 3/20/99). ... Read more

Book Description

The demand for workers proficient in virtually any field involving computers, the Internet, and electronic information continues to grow. With this up-to-date volume, job-seekers can examine more than seventy jobs in the field, from programming to manufacturing to sales. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

good cross reference for IT career books
priced to sell, where other books on this subject go waaay out there in gazing into the future, this guy is a little more down to earth, the best part is its organization, simple, but effective, this is worth the dough ... Read more

Book Description

In 1977 Brazil initiated the "market reserve policy" to protect and reserve its domestic market for its own computer manufacturing companies. The basic assumptions on which its plans rested were fatally flawed, however, and the experiment failed to a large degree. This work investigates to what extent the policy, so carefully fashioned, fell short of its target and left Brazil with expensive and poorly made products. The author also evaluated the important and influential role of Brazil's bureaucracy and military. Scholars of economic development, industrial organization, economic history, and technology should find this well-documented work valuable. ... Read more

Book Description

Unlike most studies that offer post-hoc, why-it-happened explanations of Taiwan's remarkable economic growth, Dr. Poon's examines how it happened. Using the Global Commodity Chains perspective and applying it to Taiwan's information technology industry, she illuminates not only the outcomes of development processes but the processes themselves. Her book is the first systematic study so far of inter-firm networks in Taiwan, how they operate, and how they contributed so much to the country's industrial upgrading. The result is a penetrating examination of how various forms of inter-firm networks are created and leveraged by governments and private businesses working together, and the affect this can have on both the local and global dynamics of an economically developing nation. ... Read more