They say engineers (myself included) are generally poor writers; then David Packard must be an absolute genius. David Packard's book (as has his company been one) is an important contribution and a must read for company executives. But it does require patience and dedication -- like the one he and Bill Hewlette had to endure to make HP a success! Once you get through the first 6 or 7 chapters the book becomes and absolute GEM. Until then -- and unfortunately you almost have to read the first few chapters -- the book is a positive cure for sleeplessness. HP's dedication to innovation, its financial frugality (which shows up in Dave Packard not hiring a good ghost writer or editor) and the importance of Management by Objectives, Decenterlized Organization, and Management by Walkign Around, Expected Returns on R&D are only some of the Gems hidden in this book; but you do have to mine to get to them and IMHO it is a worthwhile pain to go through. What also comes through is how HP slipped their biggest chance of dominating the chip and computer market by not taking the risk and cancelling the OMEGA project. Reading David Packard's fatalistic justifications is worth 10 times the price of the book. Also little credit is given to the inventor of the calculator that made HP a house hold name, and no mention is made of procurement of Appolo(until in Appendix 2)!!! Admittedly, I am at fault for having difficulty with this book. I read it after reading "Hard Drive, Bill Gatees and the Making of Microsoft Empire" by Jamve Wallace and Jim Erickson. These gentlemen are professional writers/journalists that know how to grab ones attention and keep it. Reading them before "The HP Way", which incidently and surprisingly was rated the best business book of 1996 by Amazon readers, is like watching the movie Titanic, and then going home to suffer through 6 hours of Mr. Rogers!!! But I do still recommend the book not to mention that I am more inclined to one day work for the comapny! Cheers, --- Esfandiar

Considering that an electrial engineer like David Packard could have written a, boring, detailed account of how he and Bill Hewlett pieced together their very first piece of equipment in the now famous Pal Alto, California garage. This book surprises you with its simple down to earth account of how it all began and how they built this tiny garage shop into the multi billion dollar company that it is today. They did it not only with a strong belief in new and innovative products, but in the people that helped build the company. This simple belief built the foundation into the HP way of corporate greatness.

The book was simply written, but it is this style that allowed me to understand the friendship between David Packard and Bill Hewlett and the corporate culture that they developed at HP. I would recommend this book to anyone that is a manager or executive to benchmark the corporate culture that HP established or applaud yourself if you have already embraced the HP Way. I trully believe, as David Packard and Bill Hewlett did, that you need a strong belief in people to make a company succeed.

If you thought that companies become admired by magic then think again - or better still, read the book.

Bill Hewlett and David Packard created one of the worlds most admired companies and it has never stopped going from strength to strength, now with the likes of Carly Fiorina who has taken HP forward into the new millenium by going back to HPs roots.

This book describes the start-up HP company and some of the aspects of its rapid growth and global expansion. There's not too much detail in this book but it does make for interesting reading - although the style is rather dry - for someone who holds up HP as a benchmark against which other companies can and should be measured. If you like me, like HP, then buy the book.

Carly Fiorina has been quoted as saying "in this new world we must always remember that technology is only as valuable as the use to which it is put. In the end, technology is ultimately about people." - that, in a nutshell, is the HP Way. Regards,

martyn_jones@iniciativas.com