Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft
Author: David Bank
List Price: $25.00
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ISBN: 0743203151
Publisher: Free Press (13 August, 2001)
Sales Rank: 25,786
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Interesting History, Not so Interesting Editorial
David Banks does a masterful job of telling the story of the internal battle between Windows and Internet Explorer. It is insightful story over the struggle for strategy. Written in the tradition of the Wall Street Journal Bank's paints colorful vignettes of the key personalities and imbues the struggle between these two groups with drama. However one of the interesting ironies of the business press is that journalists confuse themselves with their subjects. (I know of very few who went from covering a beat to running a company.) Unfortunately the more famous the publication you write for, the less you seem to remember that. This book simply fails when Banks puts on this business analyst hat. Luckily when you hear the scraping of the soapbox those pages are few and can be easily skimmed.
If you're interested in an internal history of Microsoft during the browser wars, buy this book.
Rating: 5 out of 5
I was there...
David Bank used to cover Microsoft for the Wall Street Journal. In this book he describes the period 1997-2000 at Microsoft as it coped with the success of Windows and Office and the threat of the Internet to the continuation of Microsoft's dominance. From e-mail snippets and interviews with many current and former Microsoft employees, he presents the "protect Windows" perspective of Bill Gates and Jim Allchin and contrasts that with the "do the new internet thing" perspective of people like Brad Silverberg and myself and others. Obviously Bill Gates prevailed and so a lot of people left. Overall I think a very balanced presentation -- you at least understand why Bill did what he did, even if you don't agree with his decision. Several juicy quotes from me. :-)
Rating: 5 out of 5
Good Job
David Bank does a good job of getting into the meat of the Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer story, and he was much help in helping me write my unauthoprized bio of Microsoft's CEO BAD BOY BALLMER. Similar Products
Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett-Packard
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