Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft: Amazon.ca: David Bank: Books

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David Bank's Breaking Windows offers a scathing inside look at the past few tumultuous years at the Microsoft Corporation. Bank, who covers the company for The Wall Street Journal, bases this well-written tale on interviews he has conducted with most major players (including Bill Gates) along with boxes of e-mails and other documents that "provided an unprecedented glimpse into strategic databases and internal decision-making processes of a company that had long restricted outside access to its insular corporate culture". Through them he shows how Microsoft, which always put software above everything--and in more recent years made Windows its number-one priority--has scrambled and squabbled as first the Internet and then the US government forced major directional changes and significant internal re-evaluations. Bank's story crackles with immediacy as he brings readers directly into the action with central characters like Gates, who "created a company that remained uniquely a projection of himself"; Steve Ballmer, the close friend of Gates and former sales-force leader elevated to CEO; Jim Allchin, a senior vice president who heads the Windows division and remains a staunch advocate for its dominance; and Brad Silverberg, another vice president who launched Windows 3.1 and 95 before forming the Internet division and fervently trying to turn the company in its direction. Those who can't get enough on the behemoth from Redmond will find this an illuminating addition to their bookshelf. --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

Wall Street Journal reporter Bank charts the downward spiral of Microsoft's public image: over the past five years, the company went from fearless New Economy pioneer to a predator vilified by its competitors and brought to trial in a landmark antitrust action. For those hungry to know how golden boy Bill Gates could end up looking like a defensive old-school monopolist, Bank has provided a hard-hitting yet evenhanded account. Interviews with all the major players from Gates on down (along with texts of flaming e-mails that singed the wings of such loyal allies as Ben Slivka and Brad Silverberg) lend support to Bank's argument that the debate within Microsoft over competing Windows and Internet strategies set the stage for the public spectacle of the trial and the mass exodus of talented employees. Rich and juicy details of internal company squabbles cast an unnerving dysfunctional-family pall over the Microsoft story at times. (Gates, unable to get his usual way with someone, once mused, "Something happens to a guy when his net worth passes $100 million.") Yet Bank's broad industry knowledge leads him to provocative conclusions that resonate beyond the story of a single company. Pointing out that Intel and Cisco also faced antitrust challenges but were able, through savvy negotiation, to escape the public relations disaster that come with a trial, he argues that although Gates understood the value of interoperability imposed by the Internet, he held on too long to his determination to maintain a long-term lock over his customers. (Aug.)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Inside This Book (Learn More)

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If we were under surveillance, we never knew it. Read the first page

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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews

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4.3 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)

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3.0 out of 5 stars Great reporting, broken analysis, July 8 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft (Hardcover)

The most frustrating aspect of this book is that the first half, based largely on emails produced during the antitrust trial, is a riveting and fascinating look at the internal Microsoft battles, while the last half is a poor analysis of a "missed" opportunity.

For the last half to be even readable you have to accept a few premises that simply were not supported by the text nor borne out by subsequent history. As an example, Gates is portrayed almost as an incompetent fool, eased aside into near-irrelevance by his board and Balmer. Further, the future of Microsoft's very existence is keyed upon abandoning (even giving away) Windows and starting from scratch, competing always on the last best effort with no clinging to any competitive advantage won so far, and that customers always value interoperability over utility, and so on.

While many of these would be highly desirable for competitors, the book repeatedly claims but never sufficiently makes the case for the theory that for its own sake Microsoft should discard its durable competitive advantage at every turn. I consider that to be an exceptional claim which demands exceptional proof, and which is never provided.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Good Job, Feb 4 2003

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Fredric Alan Maxwell (Missoula, Montana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft (Hardcover)

David Bank does a good job of getting into the meat of the Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer story, and he was much help in helping me write my unauthoprized bio of Microsoft's CEO BAD BOY BALLMER.

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5.0 out of 5 stars One Choice is no Choice, Aug 16 2002

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picardfan007 (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaking Windows: How Bill Gates Fumbled the Future of Microsoft (Hardcover)

Despite what Microsoft says they have no real competition. After reading this book I have to say, one choice is no choice at all. If you don't like Microsoft products you can't find a wide variety of programs without going to a lot of trouble. Microsoft would do better if they had competition nipping at their heels.

I love the people who say that Microsoft will take care of all its bugs. There are bugs because there is no formidable compitition! Microsoft can take it's sweet old time because there is no one out there to give people a real choice.

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