At the *intersection* of software and business, and the business of software. The authors draw on research in economics, IT, and strategy and bring them together to draw excellent insights at their intersection. The book is not really about business or software per se. Depending on your background, you might want to skip entire sections that are right up your own alley. If you are a manager looking to REALLY understand how the architecture of IT systems (e.g., at the enterprise level) interacts with business strategy, this book will provide a good exposure. If you are a propellerhead or uber-geek wanting to understand more about how your work shapes, hinders, or facilitates business strategy, this book is just right. I keep up with new research developments in the business of software and feel comfortable saying that the insights in this book are not to be found in other books that exist on the market.
The book is very well written, but be forewarned, it is deep. Fully appreciating it requires thought, reflection on what the authors are saying, and a tempered pace. It is not a quick read and not a "how-to" book. My only quibble with this book has nothing to do with its content: Once you get rid of the dust jacket, the quality of its binding and cover printing is absolutely shoddy. Very highly recommended and worth every penny of the forty dollar price.
Three year (June 2008) update on my 2005 review: Nothing yet comes close to the wide array of thought provoking questions that this book raises. I'm wildly speculating here, but the fact that one of the coauthors is an electrical engineer rather than a software developer is perhaps the reason why the nature of this book is so refreshing and original. Sometimes, it takes an outsider without the baggage of insider assumptions to bring a fresh perspective. At the new paperback price, it's better than a red-tagged bargain that you'd find at the aisle end caps of Target!
Product Description
Software has gone from obscurity to indispensability in less than fifty years. Although other industries have followed a similar trajectory, software and its supporting industry are different. In this book the authors explain, from a variety of perspectives, how software and the software industry are different--technologically, organizationally, and socially. The growing importance of software requires professionals in all fields to deal with both its technical and social aspects; therefore, users and producers of software need a common vocabulary to discuss software issues. In Software Ecosystem, Messerschmitt and Szyperski address the overlapping and related perspectives of technologists and nontechnologists. After an introductory chapter on technology, the book is organized around six points of view: users, and what they need software to accomplish for them; software engineers and developers, who translate the user's needs into program code; managers, who must orchestrate the resources, material and human, to operate the software; industrialists, who organize companies to produce and distribute software; policy experts and lawyers, who must resolve conflicts inside and outside the industry without discouraging growth and innovation; and economists, who offer insights into how the software market works. Each chapter considers not only the issues most relevant to that perspective but also relates those issues to the other perspectives as well. Nontechnologists will appreciate the context in which technology is discussed; technical professionals will gain more understanding of the social issues that should be considered in order to make software more useful and successful.
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