Rating: 
Summary: Balanced and well-researched
Review: I found this to be a very well-researched book. Stross provides details for all his points and conclusions. This is not a book by someone can can see no good in MSFT, nor by someone who can see no bad in MSFT.An excellent book if one wants to understand what makes a great software firm.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Inside Look at the Best-Run Company in the World
Review: I just finished reading the book while vacationing in sunny
Honolulu and found the book fascinating and encouraging for all business people wanting to emulate the genius of Bill Gates.
This book should silence most of Bill Gate's critics since
the author pointedly denounced their claims. The author
also pointed out his initial objectiveness and his conclusions in the Introduction. This was clever so as to not mislead
anyone.
I would highly recommend this first time in history, the inside
look of Microsoft.
Rating: 
Summary: Instructive book
Review: I purchased this book when it was first published, but went back and reread it recently. The book is broken down into four sections, the first being my favorite. As an entrepreneur I find the initial organization, growth, and recruiting patterns at Microsoft to be extremely valuable. I think that any company can learn from this section, especially companies with investments in intellectual capital. The rest of the book is pretty good, but not as valuable as the first section was to me. It did have interesting discussions about Microsoft's early entry into the Personal Finance market going head to head against Intuit. This should have helped dispel many of the anti-trust issues as it shows that Microsoft is not alone in aggressively marketing their products.
Rating:
Summary: Good insight into Microsoft's early days.
Review: I purchased this book when it was first published, but went back and reread it recently. The book is broken down into four sections, the first being my favorite. As an entrepreneur I find the initial organization, growth, and recruiting patterns at Microsoft to be extremely valuable. I think that any company can learn from this section, especially companies with investments in intellectual capital. The rest of the book is pretty good, but not as valuable as the first section was to me. It did have interesting discussions about Microsoft's early entry into the Personal Finance market going head to head against Intuit. This should have helped dispel many of the anti-trust issues as it shows that Microsoft is not alone in aggressively marketing their products.
Rating:
Summary: Nice PR Job for MS
Review: I read the book. I also worked for the company, as a software design engineer, from June 1996 until February of 1998. Stross seems to have been completely taken in by Microsoft's unrealistic vision of itself. The company employs a lot of smart, agressive people, but during my time there I was stuck by the basic amorality of the culture and the insularity and anti-intellectualism of most of the employees, many of whom were unaware of basic principles of computer science, let alone anything outside their narrow technical world. It's hardly surprising that the huge teams of cowboy hackers Microsoft employs turn out poor-quality software. It's likewise unsurprising that such an insular culture of narrow, incomplete human beings would lack the perspective and philosophical basis needed to navigate the hazardous ethical and legal waters that come with the territory when a market leader approaches monopoly status. What's distressing is that Stross seems to have overlooked these issues and bought Microsoft's PR hook, line and sinker.
Rating:
Summary: Nice PR Job for MS
Review: I read the book. I also worked for the company, as a software design engineer, from June 1996 until February of 1998. Stross seems to have been completely taken in by Microsoft's unrealistic vision of itself. The company employs a lot of smart, agressive people, but during my time there I was stuck by the basic amorality of the culture and the insularity and anti-intellectualism of most of the employees, many of whom were unaware of basic principles of computer science, let alone anything outside their narrow technical world. It's hardly surprising that the huge teams of cowboy hackers Microsoft employs turn out poor-quality software. It's likewise unsurprising that such an insular culture of narrow, incomplete human beings would lack the perspective and philosophical basis needed to navigate the hazardous ethical and legal waters that come with the territory when a market leader approaches monopoly status. What's distressing is that Stross seems to have overlooked these issues and bought Microsoft's PR hook, line and sinker.
Rating:
Summary: Silly Microsoft Propaganda
Review: I thought when buying this book that I would be getting a new insight in to the _real_ behavior of Microsoft, namely how this giant used every trick in the book to dominate the software industry. Instead it was a watered-down tail of how MS likes to hire smart people. Its sad to see how such a respectable historian could be duped by MS into thinking their success lies in good honest leadership and hard-word. Where are all the swindles, the lies, the shady business deals, and abuse of their monopoly that is the truth behind MS?
Rating: 
Summary: Half is really interesting, half is oddly personal
Review: I've enjoyed reading most of this book and have taken a lot of interesting lessons away with me. The first 150 pages are especially good at illustrating how the company favored technical intelligence over business acumen and why some of the decisions made have paid off so well. This type of information readily applies to any work being done today and I would highly recommend it. What I found odd was the amount of personal opinion included in the book rather than making this a more objective look at Microsoft. I'm not a Microsoft basher by any means - I use the products every day, program in VB, Microsoft's proprietary language, and genuinely like many of their products. I was just surprised to see the author include many personal opinions, blatantly claiming unfairness towards Microsoft when the context of the discussion already showed his point. This personalization led me to reduce 4 stars to three. After a while it's just distracting and I had an urge to yell "Shut up and tell the story!" The story is very interesting, and I do recommend reading it. Just don't be surprised if you want to tell the author to shut up once in a while.
Rating:
Summary: amazingly biased puff piece on Microsoft and Gates
Review: Mr Stross' book is very difficult to read by anyone with knowledge of the industry or of Microsoft's products and its business products. Stross manages to skip over many key aspects of Microsoft's rise and its predatory business practices. This includes the omission of Microsoft's deal to supply the official OS for the IBM PC, which provided it with annual profits that were greater than the gross revenues of its competitors. This revenue stream enabled it to repeatedly produce inferior products (spreadsheet, word processing, and OS GUI) for a period of many years, a failure that would have resulted in their closing their doors but for the offsetting profits from their crude DOS operating system. Any refinements to their products were only offered to consumers in response to competitors' superior offerings. Stross even goes so far as to state that Microsoft's practice of charging a license fee for every CPU shipped by computer manufacturers, regardless of whether the user wanted DOS or Microsoft's Windows GUI, benefited the consumer who got a price break (due to volume license discounts) on the operating system they did not want in the first place. If anyone wants to really understand the emergence of Microsoft and the personal computer industry they would do well to look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: The most accurate history-tale of a living legend!!
Review: Stross tells the truth!! A complete and unbiased history of legend/ genious
Bill "Ioniare" Gates. The story is told of his three basic principals on
which the mega-conglomerate giant bases his fortune. He tells the truth about the long heard myth of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates homosexual
love affair that caused Steve Jobs to leave Apple and start neXT.
How Gates and his mother dealt with Aids and herion addiction
during the strenous Windows '95 Roll Out!!
Highly reccomende
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