Rating: 
Summary: A horrible follow-up to Hard Drive
Review: I'm actually quite surprised at all the decent reviews of this book...I had to double-check that I had the right page on Amazon's site. Overdrive is an extremely poor quality follow-up to the excellent Hard Drive and has little to its merit. It is a disjointed, unfocused, biased, poorly written, and outright painful read. I agree with the comment that Jim Erickson's contribution must have been substantial; the evidence is overwhelming. I have read almost every book on Gates and Microsoft I could get my hands on, and this one qualifies without a shadow of doubt as the worst. Buyers of this book will walk away with some dollars less in their pocket and very little else...in fact, it's only been a couple of weeks since I read it and I already can't remember anything of substance whatsoever. Save your money for the original Hard Drive...a far superior work and still relevant.
Rating:
Summary: A horrible follow-up to Hard Drive
Review: I'm actually quite surprised at all the decent reviews of this book...I had to double-check that I had the right page on Amazon's site. Overdrive is an extremely poor quality follow-up to the excellent Hard Drive and has little to its merit. It is a disjointed, unfocused, biased, poorly written, and outright painful read. I agree with the comment that Jim Erickson's contribution must have been substantial; the evidence is overwhelming. I have read almost every book on Gates and Microsoft I could get my hands on, and this one qualifies without a shadow of doubt as the worst. Buyers of this book will walk away with some dollars less in their pocket and very little else...in fact, it's only been a couple of weeks since I read it and I already can't remember anything of substance whatsoever. Save your money for the original Hard Drive...a far superior work and still relevant.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Update on HardDrive
Review: This book filled the gap that was left after HardDrive left off. but of course, i would want an update to this book already, its been out just over a year, and its almost outdated. Just to show you how fast Microsoft moves
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but diffused
Review: This is a very informative and eye-opening book on the policies of Microsoft. What I didn't like in here is that a lot of material that has nothing to do with the main subject matter has been discussed at length. I don't understand why a whole chapter (out of a total of about 6) has been devoted to Mr. Gates' wedding. There is also some discussion on the history of the island where his wedding took place!
Rating:
Summary: interesting book that reveals what goes on, besides business
Review: This is interesting book where, gate is portrayed as aggressive, super-smart business man who knows how to make the right moves in business, which makes him forgo ethics & unspoken rules. Catching the attention of the FTC.great read for anyone curious on knowing the innards of software corporates & the role of the DOJ & FTC.
Rating: 
Summary: Have to read this book to know more about Bill Gates.
Review: This is one of the best written books out there on Bill Gates and the reason seems to be the journalistic background of the author that is so well suited for this kind of biographical account. The book has numerous real life stories of not just Gates but other legends as well like Marc Andreessen. Like me, you may also find that it is hard to put this book down once you pick it up and start reading it (almost on any page, any chapter). If you are in the Information Technology field, you will no doubt thoroughly enjoy this book but it isn't written just for someone knowledgeable in computers. Almost anyone can read this book with little difficulty as the focus is not on technology terms but on the lives behind the technology and the Internet revolution. After reading this book, you will definitely catch up on the events of the last 15 years or so that have changed the world into one filled with computers and the Internet everywhere. The paper used in the hard cover edition of this book feels strange to the touch and is not the normal paper you would find in most books. It feels more like cheap paper with a strange white color and the font used throughout looks like one of the generic fonts from the eighties. This alone discouraged me from reading this book for the first few months after I had bought it. But when I finally decided to read it, I instantly moved it to the top of my reading list. If you are a budding entrepreneur wanting to topple Bill Gates' empire with some revolutionary idea that you are building in your garage or apartment, you HAVE to read this book. It is inspirational as it gets the hair on the back of your neck to stand up for most of the book and it gives you raw data to analyze and strategize how to succeed in this highly competitive market place. The same author also wrote 'Hard Drive' which was a best seller prior to 'Overdrive' and I plan on reading 'Hard Drive' next as I am so impressed by 'Overdrive'. The thing that really got me hooked on this book is the author's writing style where he keeps your attention the WHOLE time. He does it by hooking into your emotions as evidenced by his account of Bill Gates' visit to Orlando, Florida in 1993 where he gets stuck in a traffic jam. As the author reveals the cause of the traffic jam (everyone from around 100 miles all going to the Sheraton hotel to listen to Bill Gates talk) you can't help but chuckle at the hilarious situation Bill is in (since he is the cause). The book is full of several such accounts where you can't stop reading! Working on a startup company myself, I was looking around for biographical books on successful entrepreneurs to get some ideas and informaiton that I can analyze for myself and find some patterns. I then came across a few books focused on Bill Gates (this being the best) all of which I purchased immediately. I have not been disappointed. This book is headed for my long term collection. I hope that you too enjoy this book!
Rating: 
Summary: Difficult Read
Review: This isn't a patch on Hard Drive. Whereas Hard Drive was one of the best reads I've had, Overdrive is neither objective or intesting.
It seems apparent that Hard Drive benefited substantially from having Jim Erickson as one of the authors.
Overdrive is written by James Wallace alone. And it shows. His biased negative opinion of Microsoft shows through.
Wallace is also not a very good writer.
For example, when writing about the actions undertaken by the Justice Department to investigate Microsoft, Wallace documents boring details about which lawyers were involved, what their backgrounds were, etc., and he stretches this section out until it is completely out of place in this book.
This is a difficult read because of the bias and poor writing ability of Wallace.
Rating:
Summary: This is not news
Review: When you're the richest man in the world, how much
of an underdog can you possibly be? If you throw
enough money at a problem, you can do things like
send a man to the moon, build nuclear weapons,
and yes, even beat Netscape. Is it any surprise
that Microsoft is becoming a major player in the
Internet? It's only a matter of time before Gates
misses another parade, and then marches out in
front and claims to lead it.
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