So where do you want to go tomorrow? That's the question Bill Gates tries to answer in Business @ the Speed of Thought.
Gates offers a 12-step program for companies wanting to do business
in the next millennium. The book's premise: Thanks to technology, the
speed of business is accelerating at an ever-increasing rate, and to
survive, it must develop an infrastructure--a "digital nervous
system"--that allows for the unfettered movement of information inside a
company. Gates writes that "The most meaningful way to differentiate
your company from your competition ... is to do an outstanding job
with information. How you gather, manage, and use information will determine whether you win or lose."
The book is peppered with examples of companies that have already
successfully engineered information networks to manage inventory,
sales, and customer relationships better. The examples run from
Coca-Cola's ability to download sales data from vending machines to
Microsoft's own internal practices, such as its reliance on e-mail for
company-wide communication and the conversion of most paper processes
to digital ones (an assertion that seems somewhat at odds with the
now-infamous "by hand on sheets of paper" method of tracking profits
that was revealed during Microsoft's antitrust trial).
While Gates breaks no new ground--dozens of authors have been
writing about competing on a digital playing field for some time,
among them Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian in Information Rules and Patricia Seybold in Customers.com--businesses that want a wakeup call may find this book a ringer. With excerpts in Time magazine, a dedicated Web site, and an all-out media assault, Microsoft is working hard to push Business @ the Speed of Thought
into the national dialogue, and for many it will be difficult to see
the book as anything but a finely tuned marketing campaign for the
forthcoming versions of Windows NT and MS Office. Nevertheless, as
Gates has shown time and time again, him, Microsoft, and perhaps even
this book you may ignore at your own peril. --Harry C. Edwards
