In this book, Chapman shares his extensive personal experience in the US software industry. A foreword, written by Joel Spolsky, reminds the reader that most high-technology companies develop a built-in social conflict between the “geeks” and the “suits,” and that success will ultimately depend on a leader who masters both business and technological challenges. While this could be perceived as a trivial statement, Chapman’s personal account of his missions in many software companies shows that ignoring it, coupled with badly thought-out business plans, leads to catastrophe.

The book is centered on the personal computing industry, covering both hardware and software companies. The first chapters cover the creation of the personal computer, highlighting the first steps of Apple and the key marketing design criteria of the IBM PC. In the next section, several self-inflicted, often fatal, product positioning issues are analyzed, including MicroProWordStar, the first PC-based “what you see is what you get” word processor, for which the author was product manager, and Lotus Notes.

The history of Ashton-Tate’s dBASE has its own chapter. The author, again, was the product manager, and his direct involvement makes the reading even more interesting. Ashton-Tate exemplifies how a bad leadership transition can very quickly ruin a solid company.

Sometimes, even first class public relations can’t save badly conceived products. The story of IBM’s OS/2 is, according to the author, a very good illustration of such a situation. The example of Borland demonstrates that initial success in one market segment (the Paradox database) can easily be undermined with poor acquisitions (Ashton-Tate), bad product positioning (WinDOS), and lavish corporate headquarters.

In the next section, Intel’s marketing practices are outlined, together with its historical $500 million Pentium-bug. Motorola’s Digital DNA is then presented, and its failure is clearly attributed to very poor marketing strategy and execution. In the same vein, Novell’s loss of market leadership resulted from weak product management, company culture insularity, and bad acquisitions (WordPerfect). The following chapter is dedicated to the Microsoft-Netscape drama; Chapman presents a balanced view of the key events.

The Internet and the application service provider (ASP) phenomenon are the subjects of the last chapter, wherein several ill-conceived companies are reviewed.

The chronological organization of the book is not the most optimal one for readers accustomed to more formal structuring. However, Chapman’s style is vivid, and the book, despite being sometimes too anecdotic, is of high value both to managers in high technology companies, and to engineers involved in creating the “next big thing.”