Customer Reviews

Electronic Commerce: A Manager's Guide

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is an excellent book, and noting the recent comments let's not forget that this book was written in 1996. At that time it shaped many of the newer ideas that have given us the "New Economy" today. Like the author's new book "e-Business," this book was THE defenitive guide in its heyday. I used it in a graduate level electronic commerce course in my school and still have it on my shelf--with a protective plastic cover on it! This is not a quick read but a long-term keeper. Strongly recommended.

Step by step, this book explains each Electronic Commerce concepts in a very easy way. Good for anyone who wants to learn more about this topic, and if yours skills are not technical, there is no problem, Kalakota and Whinston are going to explain you very well. And for the technical people, don't worry, there are a lot of chapters (like Electronic Payment Systems) that are very useful in order to understand some things behind this hot topic.

I really liked the way the authors described the management issues in electronic commerce. This book is definitely among the first that looks at the internals of electronic commerce from two perspectives: Customer-to-Business: online banking, retailing and publishing Intra-Business: supply chain management, customer asset management, manufacturing and logistics. Definitely recommend the book to anyone who wants to know about E-commerce.

A number of reviews on this book are arguing back and forth not realizing that E-Commerce is rapidly growing and maturing on a week-by-week basis. Keep in mind this book was written in 1996! What impressed me was how accurate they were in some of their prophetic statements! This is an excellent overview text! If you are looking at the various aspects of e-commerce and want to get more background to fill in the gaps in what you do not know--buy this one. Do not expect to be an E-Commerce guru on one book--that is unrealistic. There are already a number of excellent, recently published authors out there to augment this one. I still like the authors' overview--it is that good.

There are few books that have not even one nugget to take away from them. This is one of them. The content is out of date and is irrelevant to someone actually trying to build an online business. The authors are consistent in focusing on the wrong things. It is a painfully boring read and a huge waste of time!

An excellent book. The first book that got me interested in buying books on E-commerce. Most books in the past has been too expensive. I did not want to spend on expensive books until I am sure I am interested in knowing more and know what aspect of E-commerce for in-depth reading. After reading this book, I went on to buy other books on various aspects of E-commerce for more in-depth reading. Highly recommended for beginners and this book has a lot of information for the intermediate category too. Recommended for any managers who has been asked by the CEO to look into E-commerce and make a presentation on it. This would be one of the books I would refer to whenever I need to do anything with regard to E-commerce to ensure I do not miss out any aspect of E-commerce. If you are into E-commerce, buy it.

This book was a light introduction to some of the basic ideas behind electronic commerce when it was published five years ago. It was too little then and it has virtually no value at all now.

I wonder why such a book has not been updated by its authors. Kalakota's e-Business Roadmap book is not an update of this book, but is targeted at an entirely different audience, top executives who have no clue about what's going on in EC and are trying to catch up.

There are many other good books available today for people that want a manager's introduction to the subject. Textbooks that a manager might find useful include Turban's book and the book by Perry and Schneider (both books are titled "Electronic Commerce." These are much more current and definitely recommended over this book.

The book is very wordy and goes into the history of the web to start. It is definitely not a manager's guide but a mismash of different subjects that drags on for over 400 pages. If you are slightly technical this is not the book. If you want the basics, I'm sure Motorolla Press has something less cumbersome and provides more value.

Not to go into vices and virtues of the book itself (I actually think it's pretty good)...

What is surprising is Amazon's editorial guidelines - or lack of thereof, rather. One "review" too many is basically about racial/ethnic prejudices of their writers. Besides demonstrating general lack of culture, what value does that add? Is there any chance to post only reviews that deal with the content? You don't have to post this one, by the way...

I used this book in researching the history of e-commerce for a master's thesis at MIT.

The authors, kalakota and whinston, have a done a very good job of capturing the state of the art in e-commerce prior to 1996.

Anyone who is interested in what happened in the early days of e-commerce should keep a copy of this book handy.

Highly recommend this book.