Rating: 
Summary: Great reporting, broken analysis
Review: The most frustrating aspect of this book is that the first half, based largely on emails produced during the antitrust trial, is a riveting and fascinating look at the internal Microsoft battles, while the last half is a poor analysis of a "missed" opportunity. For the last half to be even readable you have to accept a few premises that simply were not supported by the text nor borne out by subsequent history. As an example, Gates is portrayed almost as an incompetent fool, eased aside into near-irrelevance by his board and Balmer. Further, the future of Microsoft's very existence is keyed upon abandoning (even giving away) Windows and starting from scratch, competing always on the last best effort with no clinging to any competitive advantage won so far, and that customers always value interoperability over utility, and so on. While many of these would be highly desirable for competitors, the book repeatedly claims but never sufficiently makes the case for the theory that for its own sake Microsoft should discard its durable competitive advantage at every turn. I consider that to be an exceptional claim which demands exceptional proof, and which is never provided.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed look at Microsoft
Review: This book provides a very detailed look at the inner workings of Microsoft. It describes the battles within the company to determine how to change in the face of the internet revolution. The author provides tremendous detail, much of which is taken from email correspondence made public by the antri-trust case. Some of the detail may be a little dull for some. My major problem with the book is with the author's premise that Gates has "broken" the company by not adapting to the internet quickly enough and instead focused on protecting and extending the windows dynasty. Nobody has really figured out how to make money off the internet, so why blame Microsoft? Gates did protect the Microsoft cash cow (windows). The internet has not made windows extinct, at least not yet. I think a little time is required to see if Gates' strategy was the right one or not. However, still a very worthwhile read for any interested in Microsoft and the PC industry.
Rating: 
Summary: The emperors of Redmond in their new Clothes
Review: While reading "Breaking Windows", I felt as if I was holding a stick of dynamite, because this gripping book completely blows the lid off of the "official" Microsoft history of the last few years. David Bank has told a story seldom reported in the mainstream media, which is that the real battle for the internet was fought not between Microsoft and Netscape, or even between Microsoft and Sun. Ground zero in the battle for control of the internet was fought between various factions within Microsoft. Senior management, which viewed the internet as a threat to the Windows franchise, tried to contain the "disruptive innovations" advocated by company strategists seeking to wholly embrace the concept of internet computing. The dilemma facing Microsoft in the new millennium is that their blockbuster franchises, Windows and Office, are "feature driven" businesses. Users continually upgrade to the newest version in order to get more power and features. This value proposition was the growth engine of the computing industry until the mid 1990s, when the internet burst onto the scene. In the internet model, power and features matter less than connectivity. What creates value in a network environment is the number of people or applications that connect to the network. The Windows upgrade strategy becomes vulnerable, because with each attempt to upgrade the installed base, the upgrade version starts out initially with zero users. How can Microsoft simultaneously leverage the network effects of the internet, and further the Windows and Office franchises? Should these goals be part of a unified strategy? Anyone who wishes to understand today's current "infection point" in software and computing architecture should read this book. It is a superb account of the internal crisis at Microsoft in 1999-2000, as the company confronted its transformation from insurgent innovator to defender of the status quo. The issues raised in this book continue to confront the company today, as Microsoft attempts to regain leading-edge industry leadership with the .NET platform, while at the same time protecting Windows from becoming a mere hardware abstraction layer. The book sets a "de-facto standard" in framing some of the issues surrounding Microsoft and the Internet.
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