Microsoft Secrets

Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of CEO Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsoft's astounding success?

Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic programs that run on the world's 170 million computers.

Drawing on two years of unrestricted access to confidential documents and project data, eminent technology-scientists Cusamo and Shelby reveal for the first time, many of Microsoft's innermost secrets.

Forty in-depth interviews with employees enabled the authors to identify seven key strategies which demonstrate exactly how Microsoft competes and operates. They reveal a style of leadership, organization, competition and product development which is both consistent with the company's loosely structured 'programmer' culture and remarkably effective for mass-market production of software.

Managers in many different industries will discover hundreds of invaluable lessons in this superbly readable book.

1. Organizing and Managing the Company
   Find "Smart" People Who Know the Technology and the Business
2. Managing Creative People and Technical Skills
   Organize Small Teams of Overlapping Functional Specialists
3. Competing with Products and Standards
   Pioneer and Orchestrate Evolving Mass Markets
4. Defining Products and Development Processes
   Focus Creativity by Evolving Features and "Fixing" Resources
5. Developing and Shipping Products
   Do Everything in Parallel with Frequent Synchronizations
6. Building a Learning Organization
   Improve Through Continuous Self-Critiquing, Feedback and Sharing
7. Attack the Future!

• Appendixes
1. Microsoft Chronology
2. Main Microsoft Desktop and Business Applications
3. Microsoft Operating Systems
4. Applications Division Employee Survey
5. Sample of Microsoft Agreements for the Info Highway

Idolising at its worst. Be forewarned, you may begin to puke.