Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great reporting from the Ida Tarbell of the information age, May 10, 2000
By A Customer
The Microsoft File is a great read and an incredible work of investigative journalism. Published originally a few months before the Microsoft trial began, it turned out to be prophetic and revealed a goldmine of information that had been kept secret from the public. Rohm collected internal Microsoft documents including email from Bill Gates himself, to document her account of Microsoft's predatory activities over the past decade. Bravo ! Rohm is the Ida Tarbell of the information age. Her book is the current day version of Tarbell's masterpiece "The History of Standard Oil." Not to be missed.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Microsoft in the '90's: players and events made memorable, March 21, 1999
By A Customer
This book covers the time frame from 1989 to 1998, focusing on the activities of Microsoft, its competitors and the government's antitrust effort over that period of time. The investigator of Microsoft and Bill Gates would do well to include this volume on their list, though it must be seen in conjunction with other works such as HARD DRIVE and OVERDRIVE, to get a complete picture. This book has much to recommend it. The stories behind the government efforts and frustrations in bringing Microsoft and its boss to task for its monopolistic and predatory practices are thoroughly presented. The basic patterns that Microsoft has used to gain its apparent stranglehold on both operating systems and software applications are well documented. The strengths of the book are in the story telling, the detailing of events ... sometimes to the point of "being there". The author's forte and the real value of the book, in my opinion, lies in the strength of the story telling. Ms. Goldman Rohm's ability to bring colour and texture to the events that she records lifts potentially flat information to memorable vitality. Her "characters" (and there are oodles of them in this Microsoft saga) are usually given shape through telling physical description, record of signature behaviours, and nick names (D'Artagnan). The environment in which events occur is given flavour and detail. To a degree that one would not expect in such a work, qualities of a good novel or play are used ... happily, as there are so many characters and so many events. Two helpful features of the work are: the list of main players found at the beginning of the work, listed according to "team" (ie. FTC, Microsoft, etc.) and position AND the italicized synopsis and hilite package found at the beginning of each chapter. Even with these features and the imaginative chapter titles (ie. Chapter 1: Double Bill> referring to Bill Gates and Bill Neukom), this reader still had his problems keeping it all together. The material is multitudinous and chaotic as reality tends to be. I personally could have done with a chart of major events, dates, and characters. Ms. Goldman Rohm has done a commendable job of making the people and events real and memorable. I personally thank her for her poetry and Ray Noorda's.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Revealing, exhaustively researched, a great read!, April 21, 1999
This book purports to tell the reader how the world's leading software company REALLY became so big and dominant, and indeed we find that the reality is rather different from the PR myth. And yes, based largely on unnamed sources as it is, I find this book far more believable than any official Microsoft version of events, or any MS denouncement of the author's reporting for that matter. (Hey, think about it: no publisher would put out a book with THIS many serious charges against "the richest man in the world" and his company, if they weren't confident of the author's work!) Clearly exhaustively researched, the book provides detailed and engaging accounts of numerous business deals in which MS was a factor or an active player. So, we get to see just how underhanded MS and its top executives could be at times, often stabbing supposed business partners (Go and IBM, among others) squarely in the back. There are tons of fascinating relevations and new perspectives on a variety of events: the Apple stock purchase; the 'AARD' code in Windows 3.1; the FTC and Justice Department antitrust activities with regard to MS (or lack thereof); shifting a major computer manufacturer (Germany's Vobis) from DR-DOS to MS-DOS...the list goes on. The key to the book's success at accomplishing its stated purpose is the abundance of MS memos, email, and other documentation somehow dug up by Rohm, that tell "the real story" behind so much of what MS has done and is doing. In particular, we see Gates and other top executives making it clear that their goal is to dominate every market and freeze out all competition, NOT to "innovate" and make the best products as they like to claim publicly. I doubt "make Gates look like trash" was a goal for the author, but the picture of Gates that emerges sure isn't a pretty one. He's revealed as ruthless and ridiculously paranoid about anyone else who might actually market a competing product. Is the mighty MS afraid that others could very well make better products? Maybe that's the real reason they are so obsessed with stamping out competition, and continue their efforts to lock everyone into an all-Microsoft, all-the-time, world. There's plenty more interesting stuff where this came from...if the bits I mentioned sound the least bit intriguing, grab a copy of the book, I bet you won't regret it.
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by Daniel Estulin
