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Publishers Weekly Review
To succeed in businessÄwhether you work for a large corporation or own your own companyÄyou have to be ready with the "killer application," the next wave of cybertechnology. Owing to the rapidly changing business environment, particularly because of the World Wide Web, managers will inevitably lose out to competition if they're not utilizing the latest technology. Companies must alter their operating philosophy from a strategy intended to provide growth for a two- to three-year period to a constantly evolving approach. "What has changed... are the basic principles underlying how you develop products, operate, and yes, even plan. To succeed digitally, you need to eat, sleep, breathe, and think digitally." The authors have devised a 12-step program designed to be "the beginning of a building code for commercial organizations in cyberspace." Among these strategies: structuring transactions as a joint venture, cannibalizing market share and hiring the children. The authors are serious; they advise executives to listen to young people, including their own children. By watching children play with video games or computers, executives can learn more about their products than if they tried to perform the same tasks. The authors, affiliated with Diamond Technology Partners, an executive learning forum, provide various examples of companies that have successfully incorporated these strategies, including AOL, McDonald's and Lotus Notes. With an insightful foreword by Nicholas Negroponte, this book presents a convincing case for a radical shift in current business strategies. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
CHOICE Review
It is very difficult to keep current in the area of computer and telecommunications technology. Every 18 months, newer and faster machines are introduced into the marketplace, and applications for these new hardware and software products are constantly being developed. How can a businessperson keep up and compete in this environment? Is there a formula to follow? Downes and Mui initially inform readers that there is a way to keep a company at the forefront. They claim that "killer apps"--highly useful, innovative applications of new technologies--can be attained by following certain principles. Unfortunately, the book does not make clear what these principles actually are. It is primarily a review of a number of case studies of successful "killer apps." Many of these stories, such as Lotus 123 and AOL, are very familiar to anyone who has been following technological developments over the last 15 years. For a beginning student or business novice, this book provides some adequate high-tech history and background to digital strategy, but for the manager or aspiring manager of a high-tech firm, it offers only an occasional interesting anecdote or two. Undergraduate and public library collections. N. Gersony; University of New Haven
Booklist Review
A whole new category of management books has grown up: these advise that the best road to success lies in emulating the innovation strategies, marketing tactics, and corporate cultures of companies in the fields of high technology. If it works for Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, it must be good for everyone! Downes and Mui concur. They seize on the notion of the "killer application," a term frequently associated with computer and software innovations, which they apply to an invention whose impact has extended far beyond the activities for which it was created. "Killer apps" establish an entirely new category of product or service and, by being first, entirely dominate that category. Downes is an independent consultant; Mui is a partner with Diamond Technology Partners, a management consulting firm that has "embraced the practice of digital strategy." The pair offer examples of killer apps from the past but focus on digital technology. They analyze the technological and economic forces that "spawn" ' killer apps; they identify 12 key design principles for "developing, encouraging, or simply taming killer apps"; and they explain how to incorporate digital strategy into corporate planning. James has already used such companies as Compaq, Novell, and Lotus as prototypes in his book Business Wisdom of the Electronic Elite (1996). A writer for trade and computer journals, James argued in this previous book that the authoritarian management model no longer works. He contrasts "traditional mindsets" with the corporate culture of Silicon Valley, and identifies eight "keys." These include the ideas that corporations are communities, not machines; that employees are peers, not children; and that computers are servants, not masters. In this new book, James uses many of the same corporate examples, but he also substantially updates and reorganizes material from the earlier work. He also focuses more on working with teams, a practice common with the companies he cites. --David Rouse
