Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy
 |
Author: Bill Gates
List Price: $16.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0446675962
Publisher: Warner Books (15 May, 2000)
Edition: Paperback
Sales Rank: 8,764
Average Customer Rating: 4.14 out of 5
|
Customer ReviewsRating: 3 out of 5
Insightful
We found the concepts in Gates & Hemingway (2000) "Business at the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy" interesting and helpful for business planning and development. Creating a "digital nervous system" seems a lofty ideal and a little too technical and impersonal though. We would have liked to see more business examples outside of the Microsoft examples they cited. What we also liked about this book is that it offers a brief glimpse into the mind and thinking of one of the most successful businessman in history. For anyone interested in business/leadership biography, this is a worthwhile read.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Digital Nervous System
The digital nervous system is built using PC technologies, low cost software, and internet protocols. Specialized companies give choice in terms of chips, system software, business applications, networking, and service. COM/.Net Object technology allows the developer to use the component without having to know the inner workings, extends usefuliness through reusability, and communicates across different networks as three tiered architecture. For example, Merill Lynch presents fifty separate applications as one single interface on the desktop. Middleware serves the purpose too make different applications and systems integrate together. Middleware has the potential to keep all data consistent between different systems. Leaps in PC performance have eliminated the need to deploy incompabile middleware applications. High end PC hardware is compability and the software is a 100 percent compabile. The homogeneous platform is the reason PCs are being accepted as servers. ERP companies are moving to PC technology realizing support for more internet user pools at lower costs. The internet protocol allows software running on PC servers to provide information analysis and business transactions. Out of the box software provides easy to customize applications to meet business needs. Using a three tiered architecture combined with customized software makes customization more possible. Companies of all sizes have PC technology. Microsoft next generation of 64 bit operating system will give Microsoft a larger stake of Unix servers. Microsoft NT has already scaled by Unisys as a Mainframe power equivalent operating system. Microsoft and telecom technology will allow voice and data networks to pass information over fiber lines and be internet based. Savings on infrastructure are significant. Listed companies realizing savings were: McDonalds - predicted savings of 18 percent, Dayton Hudson ($100 million and save at least that amount in operation savings), Lockheed and Martin Marietta (cut IT spending by $700 million over five years - realized in two years), Horizonally integrated computer industry based on PC technology attracts more software development. Software developer build software components reducing the cost of business and providing a rich layer of functionality. Windows standardize operating system insulates the developer from the variablity of the hardware. Selecting PC technology safe quards your software investment and retains hardware preference. In summary, cheap harddrives, massive amounts of memory, faster processors have reduced the cost of PC technology. Rich internet applications can be streamed to browser or client applications using internet protocols. More cities will invest in fiber optic infrastructure bring media, voice, and video to businesses and homes. Combining these two factors: cheap PC technology and standardize Internet Protocols will allow software developers to provide rich business functionality and result in "Free capitalism". We are just beginning to discover what the computer can do for us. There will be many more billionaries in the next generation.
Rating: 5 out of 5
The 1900s are dead, reshape your business to digital.
This book is a great insight to how business should work. The old methods of manual filing and hand delivering is obsolete and computers are here to stay. Infortunely the majority of companies aren't taking their digital systems to their fullest advantage, and this is the book to learn how to do it right.Bill Gates will tell you how Microsoft consulted & built digital systems for various big name companies as well as the system they use internally. This book doesn't get technical but at the same time, it doesn't dable in too much "could have, should have, would have" as it sticks with actual impilimented systems. Any programmer/developer that wants to build or improve a companies intranet, or managers that want to mold their IT deptarment into something more productive than merely fixing printer problems and supporting legacy systems should read this as it will clue you in to what IT needs to do in today's world. This book also paves the way to where we are now as you can see the ideas expressed in this book have been executed in .NET and in the .NET related commercials Microsoft has created. This is the future, embrace it or be left behind.
Similar Products
· Direct from Dell: Strategies that Revolutionized an Industry
· Hard Drive : Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire
· The Microsoft Way: The Real Story of How the Company Outsmarts Its Competition
· The Road Ahead (CD ROM included)
| 
