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Roam. Making Sense of the Wireless Internet
Reviews and press coverage
2002 Arrives - Recommended Reading
by Ives Brant, Tornado-Insider, January 2002
Here are a few book recommendations to start 2002.
High Stakes, No prisoners has been out for a year by author Charles Ferguson, who founded Vermeer Technologies. It's a no-holes-barred account of starting, financing, building, and selling his company to Microsoft. It's a must-read because his blunt candor about the stress, conflicts and frictions between Ferguson, his VCs, his CEO, his advisors, and Microsoft makes the tale highly instructive. He makes no bones about his great luck - he had a brilliant and timely idea, but equally important, he had a smart systems architect who taught him the critical importance of smart product architecture. Everyone should read this book.
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The next book to read is Roam, Bruno Giussani's tome on the wireless Internet. The veteran technology journalist breaks the mobile Net - all of it - down to understandable pieces. There should be more books like this to explain technology-centered industries to those who are not deeply immersed veterans. I rate Roam as almost indispensable unless you still prefer the telegraph to a telephone.
Third on my list is Webs of Innovation, a first effort by Alexander Loudon, a former First Tuesday insider. It focuses on how large companies create and apply innovatino or - in many cases - fail to do so. The writing and editing is choppy, and Loudon beats the phrase "webs of innovation" absolutely to death with undue repetition. Get past that, and Webs of Innovation offers useful perspective on a good topic.
(Copyright Tornado-Insider 2002)
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