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The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology

The Power of Now: How Winning Companies Sense and Respond to Change Using Real-Time Technology

List Price: $29.99
Your Price: $19.79
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Widens the IT gap
Review: Although well written for the audience noted on the cover, IT Leaders, this book further widens the gap between business and IT people. A key problem in business is aligning IT with the needs of the business. This book widens the gap three ways; by claiming that business is helped by making more information move faster throughout an enterprise, by showing solutions featuring the same old technologies of baud, bytes and mips and by suggesting that publish - subscribe is a key solution. P-S was around before William Randolph Hearst, is the voluntary mode of information glut and is part of the problem, not the solution. The key point the author missed, or chose to ignore, is ontology. Nowhere in the IT architecture he touts is there a place for an ontology of the business. And from the examples given, I conclude that he thinks a key words taxonomy is sufficient and that the representations of the enterprise as embedded in the various application software packages are sufficient. At a time when Peter Drucker's "Management Challenges for the 21st Century" is imploring the IT industry to give management more I and less T, I find this book to be another case of the IT denizens advising themselves that more mips, bytes and baud will be the savior of business. Meanwhile, CEO's world-wide are wondering why information technologists cannot contribute to the need for decision flow, based on commonality of meaning , and do not create high fidelity models of what the enterprise wants to be.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Inspiring, although a little dry
Review: I picked up a lot of ideas from this book about how to use the publish/subscribe paradigm to create value. I also discovered new ways to think about "the event-driven enterprise" and "management by exception". I recommend it for anyone considering how to create new value for the bottom line.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: interesting but shallow
Review: I was eager to read this book, to understand how publish/subscribe in general and TIBCO middleware in particular change system architecture and business strategy. What is now possible that is not supported well by traditional client/server systems? And who would know more about this topic than Ranadive, the founder and CEO of TIBCO?

Unfortunately this book does not deliver. The examples are shallow, explaining a little but not to a deep enough level to communicate more than superficialities. And the text between the example is repetitive: too much breathless ad copy and not enough content.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: It was useful.
Review: The book covered some of the real-time technology that TIBCO and other IT firms developed. But it is outdated. The environment now in year 2003 is very different.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: It was useful.
Review: The book covered some of the real-time technology that TIBCO and other IT firms developed. But it is outdated. The environment now in year 2003 is very different.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A peek into a billionaire's mind...
Review: The book makes a good pitch for real-time information systems. However the treatment of the topic is shallow. There are very few case studies, almost all alike. Reading the same few stories over and over without a fresh look results in a lot of wasted pages. If your business deals with pure real time information delivery, like a news agency or a trading firm, the book may be sufficient. For any other kind of business a lot is left to the imagination of the reader.

I find the topic very interesting and the book fueled this interest. On the other hand I was left unsatisfied. Wish the authors did not spend so many pages on their products and tried to explore the business dimensions. If I were looking for one book to recommend to our CIO on real-time enterprise, this book is not it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Business Case For The Real-Time Enterprise
Review: This book inspired me to start a company called KnowNow; I have bought a copy of the book for every executive who has joined my company to inspire them, too. The Power Of Now is a business-focused treatise on the use of publish-subscribe technology in creating highly responsive business processes. Though I agree with the reviewer who claimed the writing style is somewhat dry, I do think it is the most compelling book I've read that makes the case for IT strategists to transition to infrastructure that supports real-time applications.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Business Case For The Real-Time Enterprise
Review: This book inspired me to start a company called KnowNow; I have bought a copy of the book for every executive who has joined my company to inspire them, too. The Power Of Now is a business-focused treatise on the use of publish-subscribe technology in creating highly responsive business processes. Though I agree with the reviewer who claimed the writing style is somewhat dry, I do think it is the most compelling book I've read that makes the case for IT strategists to transition to infrastructure that supports real-time applications.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Take the litmus test?
Review: This book is for those who need to use real time technology for Business Advantage and remain competitive in the connected economy. The author focuses on key concepts of "Push Technology" and describes how different it is from the conventional "Pull Technology" of the client/server world. The implications for decision makers is profound- Act in real time or fail in Business.

It is interesting to see how leading companies like Bechtel are using this model to their advantage. The birth place of this concept and its development as a technology is the trading floor of financial markets where information is money in real time.

After giving the conceptual framework, the technical model and case studies, the book ends with issues like leadership and vision that are essential to make this happen- Transforming your company into a "Event-driven Organization".

The author draws heavily (with appropriate references) from contemporary literature on Business Management . Among all the books and articles mentioned it appears that he is most impressed and inspired by "Enterprise One to One : Tools for Competing in the Interactive Age by Peppers and Roger ".

At the end is a glossary that is useful for ready reference.

Take the "Litmus Test" of Chapter 2 ; You will start reading the book - in real time !

Thanks Vivek - I had a "Real week-end" with your book. ( Meanwhile please remember to return the workstation to Scott Mc Nealy - It is High Noon you did so !)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Insightful!
Review: Vivek Ranadive's book says technology has changed the way business is conducted. Having seemingly stated the obvious, though, he tells you what this means. This technology has spawned "the event-driven revolution," a transforming shift in how corporations act. The book begins with the early transformation of the financial services industry to an event-driven business. It goes on to discuss enterprise business applications, and then the Internet. Throughout, the author addresses the differences between contemporary and event-driven business models, with great emphasis on the event-driven model. This book is densely written, yet surprisingly easy to read. Ranadive provides a good background for students and Internet entrepreneurs (all those who think the event-driven business world started with Jim Clark and Netscape are in for a shock). We [...] recommend this book to leaders thinking of shifting to an event-driven business mode. You'll also like it if you want enough background to join the conversation about how event-driven organizations function.



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