From Amazon.com
The Microsoft Edge, by former Microsoft manager Julie Bick, outlines approximately five dozen business tactics that are successfully used within the company. Based upon her own experiences and those of 40 other managers, it presents them in short lessons that focus on hiring and retaining top employees, introducing new products and maintaining their momentum, conducting business online, and developing positive relationships with both internal and external partners. Some lessons (such as "On the Web you can alter your product or promotion daily by measuring responses and tweaking as you go") may seem obvious, but Bick's supplementary details (explaining, for example, exactly how the CarPoint site's option-pricing feature was reconfigured when logs showed few visitors were using it) are truly instructive. And while the book definitely shows Microsoft in the best possible light, some of its most illuminating material concerns the handling of notable problems--such as the total failure of the highly publicized Bob software, and the inability to debug a consumer tax-preparation program in time for its intended launch.
--Howard Rothman
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
What are the secrets of Microsoft's success? Bick, who has worked at Microsoft as marketer, new-product planner, and manager, has written a follow-up to her All I Really Need To Know in Business I Learned at Microsoft. The earlier work stressed the "personal side of business," including how to be a good supervisor and do well on the job. The new book focuses on the "business side of business," discussing successful strategies for doing business on the web, hiring (and keeping) the best employees, launching new products, and working with partners (e.g., co-workers, the press, dealers, service agencies). Bick has also drawn on case studies of her colleagues, 40 company managers. This practical guide to proven management and marketing techniques also provides insight into the inner workings of Microsoft and is an important addition to collections on that company and on management and marketing. Recommended for public and academic library business collections.ALucy T. Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
