The Plot to Get Bill Gates

Rating:
Summary: sad but true
Review: Alternately amusing a frightening account of our contemporary robber barons. Manages to convey developments in the software industry over the past two decades through personality profiles. Reaches its high point (or low point depending on one's perspective) with Rivlin's contention that Microsoft's Bill Gates suffers from a mild form of autism, which explains his extraordinary talents in certain dimensions and his apparent utter lack of any basic interpersonal or social consciousness or awareness.

Rating:
Summary: Insightful!
Review: Author Gary Rivlin presents an in-depth, if not completely objective, look at Bill Gates' hard-nosed take-no-prisoners approach to battle. He follows Gates' campaign to create a software empire and annotates the enemies he made along the way. The book reads like a novel as Rivlin traces Gates' beginnings in Washington, where he first became fascinated by computers. Early on, Gates strategically manipulated everyone, even his partners, so that he was in charge and got the best of the deal. Rivlin cuts away some of the myths about Gates being a skilled program developer; from the beginning Gates was first and foremost a businessman with dreams of mastery. We...recommend this excellent, engaging book that will have broad appeal. As you follow the drama of Gates' behind-the-scenes maneuverings, stay alert for the business strategy lessons along the way.

Rating:
Summary: Don't Judge this Book By Its Cover
Review: Despite a sensationalistic title and a poorly designed cover, The Plot to Get Bill Gates is a wonderful piece of reporting. Rivlin, while an obvious admirer of the technology tycoons, presents a fairly unbiased (though tilting a little in favor of Bill Gates) story about the growth of Microsoft, the computer industry in general, and the ever growing group of anti-Microsoft competitors. It does a very good job of describing all the players in this game, following the industry for the past twenty years, and explaining the technology so even computer illiterates like myself can understand. Rivlin obviously did a tremendous amount of research, interviewed hundreds of technologists, and really put his findings together well. This book is well written (though the flow is sometimes interrupted when Rivlin seems to remember something he forgot to add earlier and makes a long tangent out of it), very interesting (though nothing terribly original is presented if you are well acquainted with the technology industry), and entertaining. I would highly recommend it for people who want to learn more about Gates, other technology tycoons, the technology industry, or just want a look at how competitive companies operate and interact.

Rating:
Summary: Save Your Money
Review: I just finished this page-turner, and I have to say that it was a fascinating and funny read. Rivlin included more minutiae about Bill Gates' personality than I have read elsewhere. The key to this book is its balance. Rivlin includes a high degree of detail about Sun's McNealy, Oracle's Ellison, Novell's Noorda, and others, to give the reader the proper sense of perspective, to wit, that the moguls and wanna-be-moguls of the computer industry are all a pretty ambitious, ideosyncratic, and twisted bunch. What becomes fascinating about Bill Gates, in particular, is that as the "world's richest man," our media age is suddenly interested in his every breath and move (What did he have for breakfast? What is his toothpaste brand?, etc). The book is also very timely by coming out during the antitrust mess known as "Microsoft II". Rivlin takes the reader on a brief tour of other industries, to show that cut-throat competition is actually a norm in our capitalitic culture. Bottom line is that we may "hate" our capitalistic-shark CEO's, but we also wish that we had bought that 10,000 shares of Microsoft 10 years ago, so that we could be millionaires today. I highly recommend this book, and love it for its wit, readability and balance.

Rating:
Summary: Who's megalomaniacal Bill Gates? or Mc Neely and Ellison?
Review: In a world of silicon, power-grabs, and excesses of wealth, personalities often overshadow technology. The author describes these larger than life ego-driven titans with truth as well as tongue-in-cheek humor. After describing Mc Neely and Ellison, Bill Gates perhaps seems more human.

One of the best technology-driven "exposes". As a Novell NetWare CNE (naturally belonging to the anti-Softie bunch), I found out more about Eric Schmidt than I knew before. Here's hoping that his network operating system, in competition with Microsoft, will be challanged for the better. Personality-wise, according to the author, he is already there.

Rating:
Summary: Well written "tell all" book
Review: Reading this book makes me wonder if the climate around the "robber barons" was so intense. Without a doubt, Bill Gates has become the focus of admiration and ire throughout the computer industry. This book attempts to answer the question "why?".

Few come out of this work unscathed by the unflattering portrayal Rivlin gives computer industry heavys. Gates is scrutinized intensely in the beginning of the book, during the rapid ascent of Microsoft, but the vast majority of the book concerns itself with "the people who hate him." Leaders from giants Novell, Oracle, Wordperfect, and others are reduced to defining themselves by what they are not: Bill Gates.

For whatever reason, only two women discussed (Heidi Roisen and Kim Polese) are portrayed in a mildly positive light. Perhaps all this just comes down to testosterone after all.

The book contains an interesting history about products as well as people: OS/2, MS Word, Excel, NetWare, and, of course Windows. There is a particularly long description of the genesis of Java, perhaps the only thing Gates has not been able to either crush, co-opt, or corrupt. Java's story alone is worth the price of the book.

Tell-all books rarely deserve more than a middle-of-the-road rating. However, this one was well written enough and well researched enough to "sneak up" to a four-star assessment. For those interested in the subject, this book is well worth your time.

Rating:
Summary: Well written "tell all" book
Review: Reading this book makes me wonder if the climate around the "robber barons" was so intense. Without a doubt, Bill Gates has become the focus of admiration and ire throughout the computer industry. This book attempts to answer the question "why?".

Few come out of this work unscathed by the unflattering portrayal Rivlin gives computer industry heavys. Gates is scrutinized intensely in the beginning of the book, during the rapid ascent of Microsoft, but the vast majority of the book concerns itself with "the people who hate him." Leaders from giants Novell, Oracle, Wordperfect, and others are reduced to defining themselves by what they are not: Bill Gates.

For whatever reason, only two women discussed (Heidi Roisen and Kim Polese) are portrayed in a mildly positive light. Perhaps all this just comes down to testosterone after all.

The book contains an interesting history about products as well as people: OS/2, MS Word, Excel, NetWare, and, of course Windows. There is a particularly long description of the genesis of Java, perhaps the only thing Gates has not been able to either crush, co-opt, or corrupt. Java's story alone is worth the price of the book.

Tell-all books rarely deserve more than a middle-of-the-road rating. However, this one was well written enough and well researched enough to "sneak up" to a four-star assessment. For those interested in the subject, this book is well worth your time.

Rating:
Summary: The battle of the Network Computer (NC)
Review: The most interesting significant dialogue in the book focused around the battle between Oracle's Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, on the subject of the network computer (NC). Gates was so competitive, the author points out Gates dated Ellison's ex-wife, that's sick! Gates personal life is appalling. Don't get caught up in Gates personal life, however, disgusing; look instead at the company - he built.

Ellision marketed NC as the window operating system killer. The battle became a marketing and Public Relations battle more than a technology feasiblity battle. NC technology over credited the consumer burden of a supposedly costly operating system. In reality the windows operating system cost only a very small portion of the PC cost. PC technology invested billions to research and development. Such that, Intel and AMD research and development increased computational power, decreased cost, and PC components were more integratable. IBM technology reduce cost for harddrives and increased storage capacity. The PC component assembly standardized allowing various components to work together. Different manufacturers produced the mother boards, memory chips, and CPUs. Shifts in technology manufacturing to Asia reduced operating costs. Bill Gates did not believe the NC would replace the windows operating system. Gates more correctly access the pulse of the customer which was richer sets of business functionality. Consumers had become accustomed to powerful desktop applications.

At the same time desktop PCs were becoming a common and expected business expense, PC technology was proving to be an acceptable server technology running business great plains financials, sql server, exchange server, merchant server, and .net middleware applications.
Windows weakeness in massive parallel processing has been gaining in strength with each new generation of operating system. Unix had a twenty year head start in the area of symetrically parallel processing, however, Microsoft will become the leader in this field.

Software price barriers for small too medium size businesses were removed giving them affordable software and hardware infrastructures, offer by PC technology and Microsoft. Microsoft respond back too NC threat by a few of their own PR tactics. However, in the end the PC itself attracted consumers to continue buying.

On tactic was the acquistion of WebTV. Microsoft spent $420 million to buy WebTV. The first time, I saw WebTV, it didn't seem that impressive. However, consider this, as fiber optic technology investment increases and provides infrastructure for massive data bandwidth increases equal to 100,000 times modem bandwidth than Web application support becomes the bottle neck. Which company will build the software to control the information? Will the java based companies control the information or will the dot net companies? My bet is dot net technology will be the developers choice.

The WinTel PC technology is gaining more strength and effectiveness and considered as reliable servers. The benchmark must be value returned and cost per user. Why doesn't Microsoft build a dot net framework for Unix? I believe because it is unnecessary. Microsoft next generation of Operating system will scalable and powerful enough to run enterprise scale applications. Many ERP companies are realizing this shift. The investment in software development will converge on this fact and dot will experience rapid acceleration of momentum. The NC paradim was doomed because - it didn't match reality. I like the mainframe concept of change it once and effect all the users. The dot net framework provides the equivalent concept, fantasic!

Development training and marketing has always been a strong trait of Microsoft. Technology is Microsoft's religion. 100 hour weeks, with sleeping back hanging on the door, break rooms without tables, fat content food distributed as incentives to continue working, and the desire to dominate every techology sector. Gates established a culture of paronia, where every competitor was a real threat. Developers worked late into the evening and start early in the morning. Gates slept better if they worked late. The end result was a trememous amount of business functionality translating into wealth. The plot to get Bill Gates is much more about a plot to develop a capalistic culture producing jobs, wealth, and empowering the worker into a knowledge worker instead of a corporate cog.

Visual Studio.net and particularly Internet technologies have shifted strength to Microsoft development technology. C# will takeover java technology. The technology infrastructure is richer and eventually more large companies will abandon java for c#. The microsoft technology is far superior. The PC technology is more powerful. Microsoft is moving fast. The media underestimates their force.

Fiber optics will only increase the demand for more software development. Standardized APIs will empower developers to create more areas of business functionality reducing the cost of business. Voice, video, and data information will be transport over very fast network communication lines. You can bet on the fact that Microsoft technology will run the middleware guaranteeing integrated systems maintain their integrity. The dot net framework simplified component management and allow leveraging of object across multiple network computers. In the past DLL hell made Microsoft windows too complex. The dot net framework greatly simplifies the problems of managing components.

Rating:
Summary: The battle of the Network Computer (NC)
Review: The most interesting significant dialogue in the book focused around the battle between Oracle's Larry Ellison and Bill Gates, on the subject of the network computer (NC). Gates was so competitive, the author points out Gates dated Ellison's ex-wife, that's sick! Gates personal life is appalling. Don't get caught up in Gates personal life, however, disgusing; look instead at the company - he built.

Ellision marketed NC as the window operating system killer. The battle became a marketing and Public Relations battle more than a technology feasiblity battle. NC technology over credited the consumer burden of a supposedly costly operating system. In reality the windows operating system cost only a very small portion of the PC cost. PC technology invested billions to research and development. Such that, Intel and AMD research and development increased computational power, decreased cost, and PC components were more integratable. IBM technology reduce cost for harddrives and increased storage capacity. The PC component assembly standardized allowing various components to work together. Different manufacturers produced the mother boards, memory chips, and CPUs. Shifts in technology manufacturing to Asia reduced operating costs. Bill Gates did not believe the NC would replace the windows operating system. Gates more correctly access the pulse of the customer which was richer sets of business functionality. Consumers had become accustomed to powerful desktop applications.

At the same time desktop PCs were becoming a common and expected business expense, PC technology was proving to be an acceptable server technology running business great plains financials, sql server, exchange server, merchant server, and .net middleware applications.
Windows weakeness in massive parallel processing has been gaining in strength with each new generation of operating system. Unix had a twenty year head start in the area of symetrically parallel processing, however, Microsoft will become the leader in this field.

Software price barriers for small too medium size businesses were removed giving them affordable software and hardware infrastructures, offer by PC technology and Microsoft. Microsoft respond back too NC threat by a few of their own PR tactics. However, in the end the PC itself attracted consumers to continue buying.

On tactic was the acquistion of WebTV. Microsoft spent $420 million to buy WebTV. The first time, I saw WebTV, it didn't seem that impressive. However, consider this, as fiber optic technology investment increases and provides infrastructure for massive data bandwidth increases equal to 100,000 times modem bandwidth than Web application support becomes the bottle neck. Which company will build the software to control the information? Will the java based companies control the information or will the dot net companies? My bet is dot net technology will be the developers choice.

The WinTel PC technology is gaining more strength and effectiveness and considered as reliable servers. The benchmark must be value returned and cost per user. Why doesn't Microsoft build a dot net framework for Unix? I believe because it is unnecessary. Microsoft next generation of Operating system will scalable and powerful enough to run enterprise scale applications. Many ERP companies are realizing this shift. The investment in software development will converge on this fact and dot will experience rapid acceleration of momentum. The NC paradim was doomed because - it didn't match reality. I like the mainframe concept of change it once and effect all the users. The dot net framework provides the equivalent concept, fantasic!

Development training and marketing has always been a strong trait of Microsoft. Technology is Microsoft's religion. 100 hour weeks, with sleeping back hanging on the door, break rooms without tables, fat content food distributed as incentives to continue working, and the desire to dominate every techology sector. Gates established a culture of paronia, where every competitor was a real threat. Developers worked late into the evening and start early in the morning. Gates slept better if they worked late. The end result was a trememous amount of business functionality translating into wealth. The plot to get Bill Gates is much more about a plot to develop a capalistic culture producing jobs, wealth, and empowering the worker into a knowledge worker instead of a corporate cog.

Visual Studio.net and particularly Internet technologies have shifted strength to Microsoft development technology. C# will takeover java technology. The technology infrastructure is richer and eventually more large companies will abandon java for c#. The microsoft technology is far superior. The PC technology is more powerful. Microsoft is moving fast. The media underestimates their force.

Fiber optics will only increase the demand for more software development. Standardized APIs will empower developers to create more areas of business functionality reducing the cost of business. Voice, video, and data information will be transport over very fast network communication lines. You can bet on the fact that Microsoft technology will run the middleware guaranteeing integrated systems maintain their integrity. The dot net framework simplified component management and allow leveraging of object across multiple network computers. In the past DLL hell made Microsoft windows too complex. The dot net framework greatly simplifies the problems of managing components.

Rating:
Summary: Down and out in Silicon Valley.
Review: This book contains the single funniest comment I've ever read. It's in the note at the bottom of page 260.

And oh yeah the rest of the pages are worth reading as well altho -- seriously -- I found myself getting depressed at reading how Gates and his company annihilate each rival like an army of ants devours enemies along its path. By book's end, Ellison's line about "the four stages of Microsoft" (p. 249) sure rang true.