The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer [Hardcover]

Steve Hamm (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0071606106 | ISBN-13: 978-0071606103 | Publication Date: September 24, 2008 | Edition: 1

Personal computing has reshaped economies and industries, and is transforming how we express ourselves and relate to one another. The most personal of personal computers are the portables. We carry these gadgets with us wherever we go, whether they’re laptops, smartphones, or the coolest new Web-surfing devices. The Race for Perfect tells the story of two generations of entrepreneurs, designers, and engineers as they have struggled to make ever-better portables.

Steve Hamm takes the reader into a world where inspiration, design, engineering, and marketing come together to produce wave upon wave of the innovative products that we love to talk about and use. From the earliest days of portable computing, 40 years ago, entrepreneurs and designers have pushed forward relentlessly in a quest to create the perfect device. Their efforts have produced a few fabulous successes and many failures. But they never give up. They’re driven by the basic rule of the tech industry: innovate or die.

In addition to a fascinating read, The Race for Perfect offers valuable lessons for business people in any industry, revealing how they must

INNOVATE constantly to differentiate their products
CREATE design principles that are timeless
INTEGRATE design and engineering so products are both useful and fun to use
IMPROVE quality and convenience without compromise
TAP social networks to turn customers into fans

At the center of this tale is the story of a single product, Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300 laptop. Lenovo, the first Chinese company to seek to establish a global consumer brand, bought IBM’s PC division in 2005 primarily to get the company’s storied ThinkPad laptops. The X300 was conceived as a “halo” product that would draw customers to Lenovo’s entire line. Woven through The Race for Perfect is a case study of how this ambitious company, with teams in Japan, the United States, and China, marshaled its resources to pursue laptop perfection. As X300 came close to the finish line, it collided head-on with Apple’s super-slim MacBook Air—-with surprising results.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The Pursuit of Perfection
That Drives an Entire Industry

Nowhere is the drive to create better products and powerful branding more intense than in the tech industry. Over the past four decades, entrepreneurs and designers have been driven to produce ever-better portables—whether they’re laptops, handhelds, or the latest smartphone. BusinessWeek senior writer Steve Hamm traces this journey in The Race for Perfect, revealing how waves of inspiration and struggle at companies from IBM and Apple to Compaq and Palm have produced a succession of soaring successes and embarrassing flops. Woven throughout this tale is a richly detailed narrative following a single laptop, Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300, from conception to the marketplace. the creators of thinkPad X300 dreamed of perfection. They fell a bit short. But the quest goes on.

“This is a really remarkable book! Covering past, present, and-most excitingly-the future of mobiles, it brings back extremely vivid memories to me and puts in context the many challenges and great opportunities still out there.”
-John Ellenby, CEO, GeoVector, and creator of the GRiD Compass, the first laptop computer

“If you have a couple of mobile devices in your pocket and wonder why there isn't a perfect single device, this book is for you.”
-Robert Scoble, author of the Scobleizer blog and former chief blogger for Microsoft

About the Author

I'm a communications strategist and writer for IBM, where I have worked since 2009. At IBM, I co-authored the company's centennial book, Making the World Work Better. I write a mix of essays, white papers and blog postings for the Smarter Planet blog (asmarterplanet.com) Previously, I was a journalist for 30 years, the last 12 at BusinessWeek, where I wrote about innovation, globalization, and leadership. Before that, I worked for PC Week, The San Jose Mercury News, The New Haven Register, and other newspapers. I published two other books, Bangalore Tiger, about the rise of the Indian tech industry, and The Race for Perfect, about innovation in mobile computing. I grew up in a coal mining town in Western Pennsylvania.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071606106
• ISBN-13: 978-0071606103
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,714,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a communications strategist and writer for IBM, where I have worked since 2009. At IBM, I co-authored the company's centennial book, Making the World Work Better. I write a mix of essays, white papers and blog postings for the Smarter Planet blog (http://asmarterplanet.com) Previously, I was a journalist for 30 years, the last 12 at BusinessWeek, where I wrote about innovation, globalization, and leadership. Before that, I worked for PC Week, The San Jose Mercury News, The New Haven Register, and other newspapers. I published two other books, Bangalore Tiger, about the rise of the Indian tech industry, and The Race for Perfect, about innovation in mobile computing. I grew up in a coal mining town in Western Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Race for Perfect, November 19, 2008

By 

David Hill (Cary, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer (Hardcover)

Steve Hamm's new book The Race for Perfect is finally released. Having led the design effort for the X300 I was thrilled to see it in market. The book builds and expands on the cover story BusinessWeek Magazine article that Steve co-authored about the design and development of the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. I finally managed to carve out enough time to read my advance copy of the book. Unfortunately it's been hard for me to squeeze in reading something other than e-mails lately. The book did not disappoint me, it's both entertaining and an accurate portrayal of the Kodachi story. It also goes beyond the X300 story to include a detailed history of portable computing. Yes, there was life before ThinkPad.

Of course I instantly scanned the index looking for Kodachi references and possible embarrassing David Hill quotes. After all, I did interviews on a monthly basis with Steve for well over a year and a half. Who knows what I might have told him in the heat of passion that ended up in print. I am pleased to report that Steve did a great job protecting me from myself, and more importantly telling a great story. I may have a bit of "cultural backwater" explaining to do the next time I head back to my hometown Bartlesville, Oklahoma, but the portrayal is certainly not without substance. Sorry but you will have to read the book to totally understand this reference. For the "backwater" record, Bartlesville is the home of the Price Tower, the only true skyscraper ever designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, but I must admit that cultural milestone was a very long time ago in Bartlesville history.

In my opinion Steve has written a great book. It's a very informative chronicle of portable computing and the rich technology and design history that accompanies it. His writing style is engaging and the story is easy to follow. The early history of how ThinkPad was born is still fascinating to me. Congrats to my friends Richard Sapper for his design vision and Tom Hardy for his corporate perseverance. It was truly a pleasure working with Steve on this historic endeavour. My sincere congratulations to him for this accomplishment. I recommend that all fans of portable computing and especially ThinkPad design enthusiasts check it out. This one is a must read.

As Steve points out in his book , the race for perfect is never really over. We continue to strive to create the ultimate ThinkPad. Who knows, maybe Steve is already working on his next book.

David Hill, VP Design Lenovo

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not very good., April 14, 2009

By 

Book buyer (Nowhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer (Hardcover)

i wanted to like this book. It's the kind of thing I typically enjoy reading. But I can't give it a good review. First and foremost it wanders all over the lace with no coherence at all. The author mentions various devices i companies in parts of the book then drops them only to mention them later totally out of context. It's really annoying. It reads like a collection of loosely connected magazine articles. The other major flaw is how much the author focuses on hardware to the detriment of operating systems and application software. You can't have one without the other and its key to understanding a company and it's products. Finally I don't think the author understands at all why some of the companies he writes about are successful and others are not other that at a very superficial level. I really feel like i wasted my money.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good reading!, December 21, 2008

By 

M. Bletsas (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer (Hardcover)

Steve's book is a good review of the evolution of the mobile computing landscape. I have been fortunate enough to have met many of the people in the book and I am currently using a Kodachi laptop on a daily basis.
Having started with Thinkpads with the 701C and having stuck almost exclusively with them ever since, I can definitely say that this book puts some "soul" on these laptops and provides a very good explanation as to why I still keep many of them around me. Well done...

Michail Bletsas
VP, Advanced Technology and Connectivity
One Laptop per Child