Review: Microsoft Secrets

Microsoft Corp. bestrides the widening world of PC software like a colossus, and here two technology-oriented academics show how the multinational company's success can provide noteworthy lessons for other commercial concerns jockeying for position in volatile high-tech markets. Drawing on apparently unrestricted access to an organization at work over an eventful two-year span (1993--95), Cusumano (MIT) and Selby (Univ. of California, Irvine) offer a by-the-numbers briefing on what makes Microsoft paradigmatic. They identify seven key strategies CEO William Gates and his top lieutenants employ to keep their enviably profitable and resolutely anti-bureaucratic enterprise well ahead of the pack. Devoting a lengthy anecdotal chapter to each of these operating precepts, Cusumano and Selby start with a detailed account of how the fast-growing firm screens and selects programming personnel. They go on to evaluate the company's effective management of technical talent and the ways it has dominated major sectors of the computer industry, e.g., by obsoleting mainstay products long before rivals are able to do so. Covered as well are the means used by Microsoft to focus the creativity of software developers (mainly by breaking large projects into wieldy tasks for which benchmark priorities have been established) and to meet shipment deadlines for bug-free products--most of the time at any rate; the loudly promoted introduction of an upgraded and features-laden operating system dubbed Windows 95 this summer affords a case in point. The authors also assess the extent to which the company learns from itself and customers. In a rousing windup, they comment approvingly on how Microsoft (despite constant run-ins with the Global Village's tougher antitrust agencies) continue to ""attack the future,"" based on contemporary calculations of demand, supply, and technology trends. A structured but illuminating overview of a decidedly free-form corporation that may well serve as a textbook exemplar of excellence in ongoing innovation.

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Review: Microsoft Secrets: How The World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, And Manages People

Learned so much from MS back in the day. Some useful insights. Read full review

Review: Microsoft Secrets: How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People

Great insight into how Microsoft works and how it's structured. I should have read this book years ago. Read full review

Review: Microsoft Secrets: How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People

Working at a technology company I found this a fascinating work. The candid quotes from MS employees on what was working, and what didn't; what was being attempted and to what mere lip service was ... Read full review

Review: Microsoft Secrets: How The World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, And Manages People

Got this book many years ago. At the time it was quite interesting but not really relevant anymore, but still an interesting read. Read full review

Review: Microsoft Secrets: How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People

Especially good perspective on development lifecycle. Read full review

Review: Microsoft Secrets: How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets, and Manages People

From VMS to WNT, this book takes a year-long snapshot of the development of NT. Read along with Judge Jackson's US vs Microsoft decision, it's a chilling but dated look at "winning" at technology. Where's Philippe Kahn? Read full review