This is a great collection of essays that delivers a consistent message throughout. It begins with a new management manifesto, past theory, and works its way through flexibility and growth and innovation. A great, quick-reading book for those interested in the 'new' strategy game.

Here is an absolutely first-rate collection of essays which, with commendable diversity but consistent brilliance, examine fundamentals of strategy and value creation, strategic flexibility in (heaven knows) a volatile world, strategy marketing in uncertain times, and strategies for growth in fast-paced markets. We should not be surprised by the quality of content selected nor by the quality of editing provided by Cusumano and Markides. As they explain in the introduction, "The chapters in this volume fall into four categories. Part One (two chapters by Ghoshal, Bartlett, and Moran and one by Mintzberg and Lampel) deal primarily with strategy and value creation in the next economy. Part Two (one chapter by Hax and Wilde and one by Eisenhardt) talks about flexibility in a volatile world. Part Three (three chapters, by Pascale, Beinhocker, and Williamson) continues on this theme but focusses on strategy and strategy-making process in times of uncertainty. Finally, Part four (five chapters, by Hamel, Kim, and Mauborgne; Markides, Prahalad and Oosterveld, and von Krogh and Cusumano) concentrates on strategic innovation and strategies for growth, particularly bin fast-paced markets."

Those (such as I) who subscribe to the MIT Sloan Management Review have perhaps already read many of these essays. How convenient to have a single volume in which they are gathered; also, to have such a well-written Introduction by the editors and then a section ("The Authors") which suggests additional resources to explore. (I consider Markides' All the Right Moves: A Guide to Crafting Breakthrough Strategy to be one of the most important business books written within recent years.) Some owners/CEOs of smaller companies incorrectly believe that strategic thinking (at least as they understand it) is not of major importance when, in fact, the opposite is true. Go back and examine the origins of what have since become the world's largest corporations and you will learn that each began with one or two basic strategies. For example, when James Cash Penney opened his first store (named "The Golden Rule") in 1902 in Kemmerer (WY), his basic strategies were (a) to treat each customer as a guest and (b) to offer merchandise of the highest possible quality for the lowest possible price. More recently, in 1983, Michael Dell began to re-sell RAM chips and disk drives for IBM PCs (from his dormitory room at the University of Texas) and by April of 1984, his computer component business was grossing about $80,000 a month. His basic strategy then and now: To sell a limited selection of products directly to consumers and then provide superior service. My point, obviously, is that this book can be an invaluable resource for senior-level executives in large companies but can also be every bit as valuable to decision-makers in small-to-mid size companies.

The authors raise almost all of the most important questions to be asked about strategy and then, together, offer thoughtful (at times highly innovative) as well as practical responses to those questions. For example: How to define a company as a value creator rather than a value appropriator? How can a new management framework address the current business environment of complexity and uncertainty by expanding the spectrum of strategic positions? How can successful business strategy emerge from a decision-making process in which executives develop "collective intuition" and accelerate "constructive combat" while maintaining decision pacing and avoiding politics? You may not agree with all of the authors' observations and conclusions. Fair enough. But I am certain that, after having read this book, you will be a much more effective strategic thinker.

Simple, practical and it really work out for beginner to get into the .net world with good understanding. I think that it is good for the adcadmic institue to use this book for .net beginner class too.

As an experienced programmer in the IBM mainframe world I found David's book just the right blend of theory, humor, and practical examples. The code examples are clean and easy to follow and work! The extra attention to the setup of IIS, MSDE and WebMatrix was especially helpful. This is a great book to get started with ASP.NET technologies using a great tool "WEBMATRIX" . This book is for beginners so experienced ASP programmers will not find it advanced enough. And it is not a web HTML/CSS book....

This insightful book looks at how companies build a businesses on "network effects". The key case studies are MS, Intel and Cisco. If I had to summarize this book in 1 sentence: build a platform and a business model where multiple companies can add value and be profitable (constellation of ISVs, VARs and Service Providers). Book also covers NTT 3G, Palm, Linux.

Case studies are analyzed on how they used the "4 levers of Platform Leadership": 1) Scope of Firm, 2) Product Technology/Architecture, 3) Relationships with external complementors, and 4) Internal Organization.

Very well written.

I bought this book as part of my MBA thesis. This is an excellent read and full of useful insights. Mssrs Gawer and Cusumano are clearly gurus in this subject.

"a highly effective way of skirting antitrust law" - Professor Ross Anderson. This brilliant book shows how to lock in your customers and lock-out your competitors without falling foul of anti-trust law. Read, learn, inwardly digest ... then go out and make a killing. No serious marketing executive can ignore this book.

This is a well-written, interesting book. However, in my opinion, it tells only part of the story. It looks at how Netscape formulated its strategy, but not at how (or whether) this strategy was executed.

This is like explaining a football game entirely on the basis of the diagrams that the coaches drew on the chalkboard. What actually happened on the field gets no attention.

For example, the authors claim that one of Netscape's strategies was to leverage Internet standards. However, the reality is that with its browser Netscape thumbed its nose at Internet standards, particularly when it dominated the market. Even today, its browser generally is seen as less compliant with standards than is Microsoft Explorer.

Another alleged Netscape strategy was to "eat your own dogfood," which means using your own products. The reality is quite different. For example, Netscape released a production version of Enterprise 3.0 and kept its own web site on Enterprise 2.0 for several months afterward.

In 1996, a key component of Netscape's web server was something they called LiveWire, which provided scripting and database connectivity. I adopted it for my web site in the second half of 1996. However, after several months of trying to get it to work reliably, we had to abandon it, moving to Java servlets instead.

Meanwhile, as of late 1997 (when I stopped following it), Netscape's web site still had not adoped LiveWire. They let other users suffer with the bugs and problems in LiveWire, while they ran their own site using the older technology of CGI/Perl. That means they spent at least 1-1/2 years in real time (multiply by 7x to get Internet time) NOT eating their own dogfood. In contrast, Microsoft used their competing Active Server Page technology immediately on their sites.

To return to the football analogy, my epitaph for Netscape is that it is a company that told the press and its shareholders that it was aiming to play in the Super Bowl, but disdained to practice blocking and tackling.

While Netscape's executives were formulating these nifty strategies, Sun and Microsoft were getting their code in shape. In my opinion, that is most of the story.

Michael A. Cusumano and David B. Yoffie have written a play-by-play of the competition between Netscape and Microsoft in an enormously detailed book that became an instant classic. Adding to the insider scoop, the authors take the opportunity to show readers how they can apply the "lessons" from this historic corporate battle to their own businesses in the context of today's fast-paced world, which runs on "Internet time." Critically acclaimed, the book is filled with facts, figures, insights and strategies, and manages to do it all without drowning in tedium. We at getAbstract highly recommend this book to people in all business. It's exceptionally well written and flows like a good adventure saga, which it is. (getAbstract note: Despite its commendable Judo tactics, Netscape in late 1998 was acquired by America Online Inc. in a deal that was roundly viewed as a final victory for Microsoft in the browser war.)

I had bought this book about a year ago, but never got around to reading it until now. My mistake! This is an excellent chronology and analysis of Netscape's growth and the challenges it faced. The quotes from the interviews with many key people at Netscape, as well as people at Microsoft, joined with the authors' analysis was great. I found many, many analogies to Netscape's perdicament with my own challenges at work. I read "AOL.com" by Kara Swisher, which was a good chronology of AOL.com, but it's the analysis and chronology that really differentiates "Competing on Internet Time" from most other "high-tech" books.

Michael Cusumano's "Microsoft Secrets: How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People" is truly as in depth as its title suggests. Cusumano has gone to great lengths to give a very detailed picture of how Microsoft goes about its business, both internally and externally.

The purpose of the book is to explain what makes Microsoft tick. It may come as a surprise to most people, but, according to Cusumano, Microsoft is not a dictatorial fiefdom. Perhaps Microsoft's greatest success is in obtaining and retaining the best programmers in the field. Programmers are notoriously independent souls who likely wouldn't stand an overbearing workplace for long.

That's not to say that Microsoft is not a high pressure environment. Programmers are expected to meet deadlines and to be knowledgeable about what they are doing. This may sound axiomatic but the number of companies whose employees are partially (or even completely) in the dark is staggering.

The best part of "Microsoft Secrets" is that most of the lessons to be drawn from it can be applied to any organization, especially the people management techniques. Even some of the more 'software industry specific' techniques can be transferred to other deadline oriented industries (e.g. publishing).

The only real drawback to the study though is its long-windedness. When I say that Cusumano has gone to great lengths to present this picture of Microsoft, I mean he has *GONE TO GREAT LENGTHS*. This only detracts partially though as the book does remain a good read.

Fascinating detailed account of how the most significant firm in the industry makes product and marketing decisions. Cusumano and Selby were given unprecedented access to Microsoft staff at all levels of the firm.

This text is most interesting to high-tech weenies who want to understand how Microsoft organizes its product development and market introduction. Like IBM, Microsoft feels that a market leader is obligated to create its own language. If you want to know the difference between a MSFT Program Manager and a MSFT Product Manager, get this book.

You have to admit: you can adore them or you can hate them, but if your work is related to the IT you should care about Microsofties. They shape our lives each day, with their software, their operating systems and their languages and so you should know about them. And, between the books I've read about this subject this is absolutely the best. Well written, informative and not too caring about pleasing Microsoft (as other books, from people working for MS, could be). Beside the inside stuff (really useful, for example, if you plan to do a job interview with Microsoft) a lot of the technologies explained in the book for dealing with people, sofware development and organization could be adopted to your way of work, also if you're not Bill (but maybe you're planning to become one!). Highly recommended

This is one of the earliest in a series of books that Cusumano has written on software technology. In this book he cries "Wolf!": the Japanese are so much better at industrial strength software development than Americans, they have a "software factory", etc., etc.

In his subsequent books, especially those on Microsoft and Netscape, Cusumano slowly discovers that the traditional software development process, requirements/specifications/code, etc., e.g. the waterfall model, is *NOT* the model adopted by successful software companies (and, indeed, not the model adopted by many hardware companies). He learns that designs are not something to be churned out by a factory - indeed, if they can be churned out, then they should be reusing exactly the same software.

In some ways the packaged software industry, e.g. Microsoft, supplanted the custom software industry in this timeframe, the time of the PC; Microsoft's process, which Cusumano calls "synchronize and stabilize", may be considered to be JIT (Just In Time) software specification and development. Or, if not Just In Time, As Soon As Possible and No Earlier than Necessary.

While I cannot agree with the conclusions of this book, it is interesting to have on one's bookshelf, to see the evolution of the author's thought over time.