- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (1 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0743203151
- ISBN-13: 978-0743203159
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.2 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,465,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
David Bank's Breaking Windows offers a scathing inside look at the past few tumultuous years at the Microsoft Corporation. Bank, who covers the company for The Wall Street Journal, bases this well-written tale on interviews he has conducted with most major players (including Bill Gates) along with boxes of e-mails and other documents that "provided an unprecedented glimpse into strategic databases and internal decision-making processes of a company that had long restricted outside access to its insular corporate culture". Through them he shows how Microsoft, which always put software above everything--and in more recent years made Windows its number-one priority--has scrambled and squabbled as first the Internet and then the US government forced major directional changes and significant internal re-evaluations. Bank's story crackles with immediacy as he brings readers directly into the action with central characters like Gates, who "created a company that remained uniquely a projection of himself"; Steve Ballmer, the close friend of Gates and former sales-force leader elevated to CEO; Jim Allchin, a senior vice president who heads the Windows division and remains a staunch advocate for its dominance; and Brad Silverberg, another vice president who launched Windows 3.1 and 95 before forming the Internet division and fervently trying to turn the company in its direction. Those who can't get enough on the behemoth from Redmond will find this an illuminating addition to their bookshelf. --Howard Rothman
Review
Walter S. Mossberg Personal Technology columnist, "The Wall Street Journal" This is the best book I've read on Microsoft as it exists today. It goes far beyond the well-worn accounts of the company's battles with the government to provide a fascinating tale of Microsoft's battles with itself -- and with the future.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book isn't really about Bill Gates. It's about the internal struggles within Microsoft for control over the direction of the company during a critical time at the end of the 90's. The internal email evidence released during the Microsoft trial, often quite inflammatory in tone, is used to devastating effect to reinforce the argument that there was a major schism within Microsoft at a time when it was seen as a monolithic dinosaur. A break between those who wanted embrace and extend the paradigm shift of internet services and those (Gates included) who remained transfixed by the revenue and possibilities for expansion of the Windows monopoly into Pocket PC's or servers.
Despite the efforts within the Internet industry to keep communication standards open (with XML, SOAP and XML-RPC), the worry voiced in this book, and elsewhere round the Net, is that Microsoft will use its dominance on the desktop to entice a critical mass of developers under the .NET umbrella, before wielding its power over that arena to extract payments for each transaction made over the network. Interestingly for those who find this a little too close to a Kafkaesque/Wineresque nightmare, there are extensive quotes within the book from key figures within Microsoft like Allchin and Ballmer which reinforce the impression that this is exactly the strategy behind .NET, and indeed, they see no reason to hide this. The focus at the company is and always has been foremost on revenue and growth, and the internal perception of the anti-trust action is presented as one of disbelief and outrage.
However, to its credit, this isn't a hatchet job, it's a carefully balanced view of Microsoft at a time when a lot of its competitors used the anti-trust trial as a stick to beat concessions from Redmond, and companies like Sun are not spared from criticism. The text is technically quite savvy, including jargon only when necessary, but you won't learn more in detail about technical issues from reading it. It's more about the personal disputes over fiefdoms and strategies within Microsoft from the initial u-turn over the Internet in the mid-90's to the struggles for control over the browser team/code between the operating system units and the Internet 'doves' within the company. Then on to the synthesis in 2000 of two diametrically opposed forces, the Internet and Desktop Windows, in .NET.
If only more tech Journalism 'got it' the way this book does. As Banks says late on in the book 'Forget Browsers'. The real issues have moved on since the anti-trust trial started years ago, and the mainstream internet is the new battleground.
With the launch of Windows XP, Breaking Windows could not be more relevant to anyone who uses computers, whether or not they use Windows on the desktop. As evidenced by Redmond's aggressive colonisation of areas as diverse as streaming video, smart tags and instant messaging in Windows XP, the will of the software giant is far from broken.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Very interesting book to read. The writer has been writing a long time about Microsoft so he seems to know the top management and has been able to interview them. In addition to this, he had the material from Microsoft's leagal battles (public documents) - including emails exchanged between Microsoft employees.
In my opinion this book gives very good insight on Microsoft's business strategy and their management practises. For technical people familiar with Microsoft technologies (like .NET) it is interesting to see how these basic principles show in Microsoft's current efforts.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
17 reviews
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful
I was there...
7 Nov 2001
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
David Bank used to cover Microsoft for the Wall Street Journal. In this book he describes the period 1997-2000 at Microsoft as it coped with the success of Windows and Office and the threat of the Internet to the continuation of Microsoft's dominance. From e-mail snippets and interviews with many current and former Microsoft employees, he presents the "protect Windows" perspective of Bill Gates and Jim Allchin and contrasts that with the "do the new internet thing" perspective of people like Brad Silverberg and myself and others. Obviously Bill Gates prevailed and so a lot of people left. Overall I think a very balanced presentation -- you at least understand why Bill did what he did, even if you don't agree with his decision. Several juicy quotes from me. :-)
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful
The emperors of Redmond in their new Clothes
25 July 2001
Format:Hardcover
While reading "Breaking Windows", I felt as if I was holding a stick of dynamite, because this gripping book completely blows the lid off of the "official" Microsoft history of the last few years. David Bank has told a story seldom reported in the mainstream media, which is that the real battle for the internet was fought not between Microsoft and Netscape, or even between Microsoft and Sun. Ground zero in the battle for control of the internet was fought between various factions within Microsoft. Senior management, which viewed the internet as a threat to the Windows franchise, tried to contain the "disruptive innovations" advocated by company strategists seeking to wholly embrace the concept of internet computing.
The dilemma facing Microsoft in the new millennium is that their blockbuster franchises, Windows and Office, are "feature driven" businesses. Users continually upgrade to the newest version in order to get more power and features. This value proposition was the growth engine of the computing industry until the mid 1990s, when the internet burst onto the scene. In the internet model, power and features matter less than connectivity. What creates value in a network environment is the number of people or applications that connect to the network. The Windows upgrade strategy becomes vulnerable, because with each attempt to upgrade the installed base, the upgrade version starts out initially with zero users. How can Microsoft simultaneously leverage the network effects of the internet, and further the Windows and Office franchises? Should these goals be part of a unified strategy?
Anyone who wishes to understand today's current "infection point" in software and computing architecture should read this book. It is a superb account of the internal crisis at Microsoft in 1999-2000, as the company confronted its transformation from insurgent innovator to defender of the status quo. The issues raised in this book continue to confront the company today, as Microsoft attempts to regain leading-edge industry leadership with the .NET platform, while at the same time protecting Windows from becoming a mere hardware abstraction layer. The book sets a "de-facto standard" in framing some of the issues surrounding Microsoft and the Internet.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Detailed look at Microsoft
4 Sep 2001
Format:Hardcover
This book provides a very detailed look at the inner workings of Microsoft. It describes the battles within the company to determine how to change in the face of the internet revolution. The author provides tremendous detail, much of which is taken from email correspondence made public by the antri-trust case. Some of the detail may be a little dull for some. My major problem with the book is with the author's premise that Gates has "broken" the company by not adapting to the internet quickly enough and instead focused on protecting and extending the windows dynasty. Nobody has really figured out how to make money off the internet, so why blame Microsoft? Gates did protect the Microsoft cash cow (windows). The internet has not made windows extinct, at least not yet. I think a little time is required to see if Gates' strategy was the right one or not. However, still a very worthwhile read for any interested in Microsoft and the PC industry.
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