Rating: 
Summary: Conditionally Good
Review: This is an interesting and informative book for the academic student. It truly is engagingly written. Yet for the professional in the field it is just an entertaining review you may want to look back on from time to time. It needs a little more depth for the veteran.
Rating:
Summary: Verbose but a Kernel of worthiness
Review: This is a good introductory text for those who are just getting into the concepts of marketing (as opposed to "Sales"). It would be quite good for an MBA Student text, for example.For professionals for whom time is at a premium, this is about 45% repetition with content squashed between mutiple renditions of "Do you believe?" As it goes, it is worth a B (barely)in my book.
Rating:
Summary: Good for enterprise software marketing
Review: This is a very good book and it clearly states a great direction for marketing enterprise software in the B2B space. If you want to be the next Oracle, this is for you. The only problem is that it is off the mark for consumer software. Their formula will not likely work if you want to be the next Intuit, Microsoft, etc.
Rating: 
Summary: Helpful Revision of a High-Tech Marketing Classic
Review: Crossing the Chasm deserves more than five stars for putting "a vocabulary to a market development problem that has given untold grief to any number of high-tech enterprises." Crossing the Chasm is the most influential book about high technology in the last 10 years. When I meet with CEOs of the most successful high technology firms, this is the book that they always bring up. What most people do not realize is that Geoffrey Moore did an excellent update of the book in a revised edition in 1999. If you liked the original, you will like the revision even more. It contains many better and more up-top-date examples, and explores several new ways that companies have crossed the chasm that he had not yet observed in 1991 when the original came out (such as "piggybacking," the way that Lotus 1-2-3 built from VisiCalc's initial success). If you plan to work or invest in any high technology companies, you owe it to yourself to read and understand this book. The understanding won't be hard, because the material is clear and well articulated. The book's focus is on a well-known psychological trait (referred to as Social Proof in Influence by Robert Cialdini). There is a potential delay in people using new things "based on a tendency of pragmatic people to adopt new technology when they see other people like them doing the same." As a result, companies must concentrate on cracking the right initial markets in a segmented way to get lots of references and a bandwagon effect going. One market segment will often influence the next one. Crossing the Chasm is all about how to select and attack the right segments. Many companies fail because innovators and early adopters are very interested in new technology and opportunities to create setrategic breakthroughs based on technology. As a result, these customers are not very demanding how easy it is to use the new technology. To cross the chasm, these companies must primarily appeal to the "Early Majority" of pragmatists who want the whole solution to work without having to be assembled by them and to enhance their productivity right away. If you wait too long to commercialize the product or service in this way, you will see your sales shrivel after a fast start with the innovators and early adopters. The next group you must appeal to are the Late Majority, who want to wait until you are the new standard and these people are very price sensitive. Many U.S. high technology companies also fail to make the transitions needed to satisfy this large part of the market (usually one-third of demand). The final group is technology adverse, and simply hopes you will go away (the Laggards). The book describes its principles in terms of D-Day. While that metaphor is apt, I wonder how well people under 35 know D-Day. In the next revision, I suggest that Desert Storm or some more recent metaphor be exchanged for this one. The book's key weakness is that it tries to homogenize high technology markets too much. Rather than present this segmentation as immutable, it would have been a good idea to provide ways to test the form of the psychological attitudes that a given company will face. The sections on how to do scenario thinking about potential segments to serve first are the best parts of the book. Be sure you do these steps. That's where most of the book's value will come for you. Otherwise, all you will have added is a terminology for describing how you failed to cross the chasm. I also commend the brief sections on how finance, research, and development, and human resources executives need to change their behavior in order to help the enterprise be more successful in crossing the chasm. After you finish reading and employing the book, I suggest that you also think about what other psychological perceptions will limit interest in and use of your new developments. You have more chasms to cross than simply the psychological orientation towards technology. You also have to deal with the tradition, misconception, disbelief, ugly duckling, bureaucracy, and communications stalls. Keep looking until you have found and dealt with them all! May you move across the chasm so fast, that you don't even notice that it's there!
Rating:
Summary: Moore brought his A game on this book
Review: This man is amazing, he is one of my role models, I am a 21 year old college student planning on selling hi tech after school. Basically Moore transforms a relatively simple Product Life Cycle into a more complex and thourough analysis on hi tech theory. BUY THE BOOK. Excellent read.
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Summary: An IT consultant must !
Review: Almost every thing have been said and written about these 2 books ("Crossing the chasm" and "Inside the tornado"). These are really about the best business books ever, but I would like to add one point :
This book is compulsory reading for IT consultants and system integrators, without it, you will never understand how to manage your technology "partners" (or why they treat you so poorly !). Once you will have read it, you will understand their goal, their lifecycle and your role in that game. If you deal with the SAP, Siebel and Oracle of the world (the gorrilas), you will start to decipher their strategy.
Rating:
Summary: Crossing the Chasm
Review: In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore does more than simply define what the "chasm" in a marketing strategy is, but goes on to relate to his audience the reasons behind the chasm, how to cross it, as well as define the actions to take in order not to fall back into the chasm. This is certainly a phenomenal book that those in business, and especially those businesses that are high-tech in nature, should read in order to gain a better understanding of what kinds of obstacles innovating and marketing new products creates.
Rating:
Summary: Get ready to cross the chasm or you'll fall into it
Review: Most people who do marketing are familiar with the adoption curve (i.e. Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards.) Companies who create technological products frequently have brilliant success with the first two groups and then fall into a pit trying to get to the pot of gold on the other side of this rainbow, selling to the rest of the curve. Crossing the Chasm details the important gap between Innovators and Early Adopters and then outlines a campaign strategy for crossing that chasm to mainstream marketing success. The book gives many examples of products that crossed the chasm successfully (such as Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft.) Time and time again, technology companies fail because they are concerned with sales numbers (to please shareholders or investors) or because of a bean-counter mentality or simply insufficient funding. The author Geoffrey Moore uses D-Day and the taking of Omaha Beach as a powerful metaphor for how to establish a beachhead before assaulting the mainstream. Like the beaches of Normandy, high cost and certain losses can be essential to establishing the toehold that stages victory. Also important is the idea that to reach the mainstream market, vendors must provide the a complete solution, including support. This is an area that high-tech companies typically want to skimp on; the Innovator and Early Adopter types are natural pioneers and self-sufficient. These buyers accept a higher level of product problems and work-arounds. The mainstream majority buyers are pragmatic; they buy a product not for its own sake, or because it is "cool." They buy to get a job done and want a product that does the job and does it trouble-free. A lack of service and complete solutions is one big reason technology firms fall into the chasm with an initially hot-selling product. The book is not tremendously detailed, but gives clear, understandable examples of how to set up a strategy in order to target a market and select a "must-have" value proposition suitable to drive in a wedge. The most valuable part of the book, in my opinion is the advice on weathering the ongoing pressure of executive management reviews, which can constantly threaten to derail a bold yet workable plan. This is must reading for anyone in the high-stakes technology market. It's an exciting game, and this book provides important strategies to win.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read for Tech Execs
Review: If you have a Internet related job and in management, then read this book and Inside the Tornado. Then you'll understand HowTo make your company a success.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing high tech read
Review: This is a truly amazing high tech read. If you work with any type of high tech firm, it is a must read for the wisdom you'll learn. The first time you read it, you will no doubt see your own firm and the mistakes you are making. Pass it over at your own risk!
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