The Component-Based Business: Plug and Play (Practitioner Series (Springer-Verlag).)

Rating:
Summary: Should you buy this book?
Review: By no means dry, the book has a colorful way of exploring topics and then moving on before they have a chance to settle. I suppose this is the author's style and as a consultant one should be good at asking questions and most importantly asking the right ones. In many ways this is the books greatest strength as the author draws on real life examples and then poses questions for further thought. However, the open-ended approach to this all is IMHO the books biggest weakness as the author ends up asking more questions then he seems able to answer. He explains in the afterward that the book is a result of many disjointed notes and their eventual refinement which makes sense because I found no closure upon completing the last chapter. I asked myself what was the point of the book and realized it is what it is: a survey of business and IT, ala Stewart Brand, Gregory Bateson (two highly respected cyberneticists) and others with the resultant hodgepodge of systems theory.

In short I would not recommend this book for people looking for a practical hands-on approach to their business and IT. However, I would recommend it for anyone who likes "philosophising" about business and IT systems as the author has a very good knack at making the mundane exciting and vivid. Bringing software maintenance to the same calibre as development (he argues effectively rarely does pure development exist) was the most important thing I took away, though "great minds think alike" may be just another cliche.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating, lucid book that cuts through the hype
Review: This is a must read for business people interested the competitive moves opened up by business components. It is irreverent, witty, fun. It deals with how to spot the components that will win, not this or that technology. It reclaims the streets from the corporate hype about who owns the market.