This book does a good job to summarize the past and current IT industry trends. The author high-level summarizes what he saw in the past and what he forsees in the future. This is a book for you to read and then think about what it means to your business.

However, there are some chapters not easy for everyone to read. Recommend to read ch1 and ch2 - if you are interested in the past IT trend; ch3 - the main concept of the book and the last chapter - conclusion. If you don't understand web services, then you can read other chapters.

This is an excellent book on the near term future of IT. It says that the next IT growth is based on customer innovation. No incremental improvements to existing or leadership in emerging markets are is likely to be sufficient to drive a major industry expansion (page xiv). The shift from supplier to customer dominated industry represents a huge cultural and business change and challenge.

The emerging customer-centric era requires customer leadership, including vision, motivation, skills, and decision making capabilities. Customers must show the same level of faith and commitment than IT suppliers have provided in the past. The customer motivation is the single most important risk of the future success of IT (page 230). This is closely tied to executive attitudes towards technology (234).

This also means that traditional venture capital backed start-ups will play a diminishing role in the industry.
The responsibility is on the leadership of existing industries, with a relative absence of start-ups and therefore a relatively reduced role of entrepreneurs (143).

"The sad thing is that so much of (this) energy flowed into a flawed industry vision ...unless the IT industry embraces some sort of shared long-term vision and direction, the use of technology could either drift aimlessly or continue to squeeze diminishing returns out of proven areas of investments" (40).

Many of the key customer-centric applications have already been identified. These include music, advertisement, payments, health care, e-learning, government services, and community interaction (26).

Web Services and Semantic Applications are marketed as the next big thing concepts. Web Services implement process nets with modular components. Many viable Web Services already exist, such as e-mail, credit card processing, and news feed. Web Services may lead to the emergence of new kind and more specialized service companies that provide better economies scale, or skills, or more flexibility, and may create shareholder value. This dis-integration differs from the dot-com vision - processes instead of businesses are horizontalized. On the other hand, the dot-com collapse has shown the risks of outsourcing.

Semantic Applications are capable of understanding other applications. They require industry standardization, which is seen everywhere; in the joint initiatives in electronics, automotive, manufacturing, medical, chemical, and travel industries (115).

The book considers e-learning as a major opportunity, and LMS (Learning Management Systems) as the last great enterprise horizontal software market, in the lucrative tradition of ERP, CRM and so on (156).

Communities are still at the heart of the Internet activities. They rival and exceed those of e-business and e-learning realms (166-167).

Government's role in information society is thoroughly described and evaluated (185-206). Public policy is increasingly important IT industry factor (43). Example are e-learning, online gaming, voting, identification, security, spectrum allocation, public information services, integrated government databases, antirust, regulation and tax policies, copyright and patent law (42).

The best part of the book is a critical approach to the so-called horizontal business model. On a company level this model is associated with a highly focused business strategy. The belief was that there will be dominant market leaders, "gorillas", and that these leaders are start-ups that are able to replace much of the established economic order (34). The belief on this mental model and the overreliance on the PC industry mind-set was one of the main causes of the Internet bubble (28-29). History does not repeat itself. Many Internet-related businesses have no clear market leaders and have remained very competitive.

A major weakness of the book is that it leaves C out of IT. It fails to recognize the importance of telecommunications or mobile industry and the convergence as the basis for the next technology-based ICT growth. On page 56, the book says "mobile systems are not going to be the dominant computing platform any time soon, and they are unlikely to fundamentally later the way businesses and other organizations are run". This becomes again evident on page 169 where the writer hints that the high international usage of mobile phones is due to the lack of voice mail or bad service and high prices by foreign telecom monopolies. This blind spot also means the lack of global perspective, because in large parts of Asia and Europe the integrated multi-media consumer electronics offerings (instead of "computers" and "software" still sold by the IT industry) of the mobile industry have already dwarfed "old" IT as the consumer supplier.

I still give this book five stars. Highly recommended, but read with caution.

Let's face it, there are way too many prognostications about technology, business and the consumer. The Internet Bubble generated a mountain of exuberant "vision" books, many that their authors now have good cause to be embarrassed about.

In contrast, this book strips away "irrational exuberance", and gives a sober and well-grounded perspective of how technology has really changed the world thus far, and what likely lies ahead - leaving the rose-colored glasses behind.

The driving premise is a simple, but profound one: the pervasive success of the PC and the Internet have created a population of customers that are finally educated enough about IT possibilities, that they are actively driving the future of the market. While this is given for most mature markets, remarkably it's a relatively new development in IT.

The implication for business executives: if you're passive in your vision and use of technology, your doomed to be regularly surprised by your competitors' IT-based business breakthroughs.

The implication for IT suppliers: the reality of other major markets like CPG, Auto and Retail is now upon you; get to know your customers' worlds VERY well, for that - not the technical agenda of your development labs - is defining your future.

Moschella is not a showman, but a serious and experienced analyst of the technology industry. As a result, the book dives deeper on occasion than the casual reader may like. But for the business executive whose biggest decisions must now anticipate IT's future, it's a very worthwhile read.

The past 100 years have been truly remarkable from the standpoint of human advancement through unprecedented technological breakthroughs. The emergence of the computer industry represents perhaps the most significant aftereffect of these recent discoveries, with nearly every innovation since the industry's inception proving to be more awe-inspiring that the last. As sudden as the waves of technological change have transpired upon us, however, the history explaining their materialization has spread its roots into countless factors and interrelated topics that make acquiring a cognizance of the IT revolution and the reasons for today's computer industry structure an irrefutably perplexing task. To David Moschella's credit, such an undertaking is more easily attainable with the help of his text "Waves of Power."

Regardless of the era, the technology, or the company being studied, the structure of the IT industry in the U.S. has been subject to the invisible hand of a capitalistic society. Surprisingly, this has not made predicting future business models or sources of power any less challenging. A free, democratic marketplace did not prevent the formation of "monopolies" IBM and Microsoft. The unique aspects of the IT industry, with the enormous economies attributable to some of its sectors and with computer technology still in its infancy compared to most other long-standing products, combine to make it almost immune to natural market forces that typically disrupt monopolistic powers. Success in breaking up those corporate giants that have accumulated an alarming share of an industrial market is often attributable to government intervention or to the corporate giants themselves. This is why the Justice Department's handling of the antitrust case against Microsoft is important to the formation of a technological future that even vaguely resembles the global connectivity envisioned by Moschella in the year 2010. Software subordination to new network-centric devices and peripherals is less likely to happen if more companies (new and old) do not expand the presence of Microsoft independent operating systems or Intel-compatible microprocessors. No one makes this more clear than David Moschella himself who, since the printing of this book, has chastised IT vendors for failing to make a dent in Microsoft's empire.

Nevertheless, the network-centric era does present plentiful opportunities for many businesses. Moschella points out that the pace with which network computing transforms a particular industry's business processes is directly related to the industry's proportion of information based products (bits) as opposed to tangibles (atoms). It thus makes sense that the banking industry is one of the first to adopt the network-centric approach out of necessity even as current bandwidth technology remains wanting. But before any company, bit or atom-based, looks to invest in IT to improve its business, Moschella strongly advises that an effective strategic plan be the driving force behind such endeavors rather than peer pressure from industry rivals to acquire and implement a hot new system. Adherence to such principles facilitates wise business strategies. It is precisely this type of philosophy that Moschella believes will ensure a healthy and competitive marketplace where the ideals of a content-centric society are more inclined to be met and the regulatory actions of government agencies deemed less necessary. Such are the overriding points that "Waves of Power" attempts to convey.

This is a great book to keep around as a reference. It discusses the early history of the IT industry as well as its future. The author does a great job of rooting out all of the Internet hype and hysteria also.

David Moschella has brilliantly interweaved a historical perspective of the global info/tech industry into a very insightful forecast that can be used by both info/tech and non-info/tech professionals.

David's historical perspective includes: well-defined market-based outcomes, insightful global trends, concise strategic consequences, and clear summaries of most important points in time. His global framework helps us to understand countries' competitive strengths and their abilities to adapt to the coming changes in the info/tech industry. Finally, his forecast of the info/tech industry, which has to take into account the ever-changing landscape and the unforeseen innovations, appears to have strong grounding in the history of the info/tech business and other industries that have gone through innovative and strong growth periods.

To conclude, Waves of Power is an excellent education in the information technology industry, and will provide insight and ideas to managers and investors alike.

John Bagazinski