This book was, according to the author, “developed out of notes prepared while teaching the course over a period of five years at the University of Toronto and one semester at the University of California, Berkeley.” The author further indicates that “In all cases students were in their senior years with a background of management science, computer science, and engineering. Prerequisites for the course have included courses on computer organization and programming, (although the exercises do not require programs to be written), as well as a general course in economics.” The author acknowledges his debt to Montgomery Phister for his remarkable work [1].

This book, which is based on economics theory, attempts to cover the entire field of the business computer and information with regard to the user, the service center, the industry, and the related national and international policies. A brief summary of the twelve chapters follows.

Chapter 1, Computer Performance, concentrates on the factors of speed, cost, system throughput, and response time, in order to establish bases of comparison. Chapter 2, Throughput, Response Time and Capacity Planning, presents in a few pages a concise treatment of three complex topics. Chapter 3, System Financing and Cost Recovery, explains the financing of the acquisition of systems and recovering the costs for providing services. It includes the various methods of billing for computer services. Chapter 4, Centralized, Decentralized and Distributed Systems, provides a classification of systems along with comparative advantages and disadvantages, and various trends.

Chapter 5, Data, Information, and Knowledge, is the beginning of the section regarding the user. It presents the attributes of data, information, and of information systems. Chapter 6, Cost-Benefit Analyses, described the feasibility and economics criteria such as payback period, internal rate of return, in-house versus service bureau, and make or buy software. Chapter 7, Software Development and Maintenance, gives us the elements of the development cycle and time estimates for software production.

Part 3 which is entitled The Industry, starts with Chapter 8, Technological Developments in Information Processing. This chapter covers hardware improvements, system and application software, and the merging of computers and communications. In Chapter 9, Industry Structure, the author examines the computer industry from the standpoint of the manufacturer and seller of products and services, and looks for measures of the volumes produced and consumed. Chapter 10, Corporate Strategies, treats the cost advantages of established computer firms, and of marketing approaches.

The last section of the book is National Policies for Computers and Communications. Chapter 11, Issues, Goals, and Constraints, covers the information economy, and national priorities in a global context. Chapter 12, National Policies and Their Effectiveness, compares how different countries, such as the United States, Japan, and Europe (United Kingdom, France), have articulated such plans.

This book is very valuable both as an introduction to a variety of economics and cost concepts, and as a reference text due to the wealth of statistics, tables, flowcharts, and equations which are provided in the various chapters.

The bibliography is extensive and includes over 250 references selected from the ACM, IEEE, and Auerbach’s publications, IBM Systems Journal, Datamation, Datapro, Scientific American, Performance Evaluation Reviews, US, Canadian and French Government’s publications, and numerous books.

However, there is no glossary of terms, and no index of the numerous tables and graphs. A series of over fifty exercises is provided at the end of the first ten chapters, but there are no answers provided in the text.

I can only strongly recommend this text to both practitioners (i.e., MIS directors, consultants), and academics who want to obtain a solid perspective of the economics of the computer and information industry.