How to Succeed in the Digital Economy: Bill Gates on Microsoft, GM, and Dell (1999)

Business @ the Speed of Thought is a book written by Bill Gates and Collins Hemingway in 1999. It discusses how business and technology are integrated, and shows how digital infrastructures and information networks can help getting an edge on the competition. Gates asserts cyberspace and industry can no longer be separate entities, and that businesses must change to succeed in the Information Age. Though the book is not a technology handbook it gives interesting insights as to how to integrate business process with technology. It gives one an understanding of how advances in networking and information technology can make a difference in day to day business. The Book has summaries on what the chapter speaks about and what the Digital Nervous System must do to make sure the particular act explained before is done. In the way to explains things he quotes peoples who have led to great growth at their company like Sloan of General motors, Jeff and Pat of Microsoft and so on. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_@_the_Speed_of_Thought On, May 26, 1995, Bill Gates sent the "Internet Tidal Wave" memorandum to Microsoft executives. The memo described Netscape with their Netscape Navigator as a "new competitor 'born' on the Internet." The memo outlines Microsoft's failure to grasp the Internet's importance, and in it Gates assigns "the Internet this highest level of importance" from then on.[40] Microsoft began to expand its product line into computer networking and the World Wide Web. On August 24, 1995, it launched a major online service, MSN (Microsoft Network), as a direct competitor to AOL. MSN became an umbrella service for Microsoft's online services, using Microsoft Passport (now called Windows Live ID) as a universal login system for all of its web sites.[6][8][41] The company continued to branch out into new markets in 1996, starting with a joint venture with NBC to create a new 24-hour cable news television station, MSNBC. The station was launched on July 15, 1996 to compete with similar news outlets such as CNN.[8][42] Microsoft also launched Slate, an online magazine edited by Michael Kinsley, which offered political and social commentary along with the cartoon Doonesbury.[6] In an attempt to extend its reach in the consumer market, the company acquired WebTV, which enabled consumers to access the Web from their televisions.[6] Microsoft entered the personal digital assistant (PDA) market in November with Windows CE 1.0, a new built-from-scratch version of their flagship operating system, designed to run on low-memory, low-performance machines, such as handhelds and other small computers.[43] 1996 saw the release of Windows NT 4.0, which brought the Windows 95 GUI and Windows NT kernel together.[44] While Microsoft largely failed to participate in the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, some of the key technologies in which the company had invested to enter the Internet market started to pay off by the mid-90s. One of the most prominent of these was ActiveX, an application programming interface built on the Microsoft Component Object Model (COM); this enabled Microsoft and others to embed controls in many programming languages, including the company's own scripting languages, such as JScript and VBScript. ActiveX included frameworks for documents and server solutions.[8] The company also released the Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, which had built-in support for internet applications.[8] Later in 1997, Microsoft Office 97 as well as Internet Explorer 4.0 were released, marking the beginning of the takeover of the browser market from rival Netscape, and by agreement with Apple Computer, Internet Explorer was bundled with the Apple Macintosh operating system as well as with Windows.[8] Windows CE 2.0, the handheld version of Windows, was released this year, including a host of bug fixes and new features designed to make it more appealing to corporate customers.[43] In October, the Justice Department filed a motion in the federal district court in which they stated that Microsoft had violated an agreement signed in 1994, and asked the court to stop the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft