Microsoft Secrets by Richard W. Selby and Michael A. Cusumano (1998, Paperback)

Synopsis
In this title, the authors--who interviewed 38 Microsoft employees including chairman and CEO Bill Gates--provide a detailed look at how the software giant develops new products and how it strives constantly to improve its operations. They proceed to identify the seven key strategies discovered in product data and internal documents and explain how these methods have helped create this corporate titan.

Key Details
Author:	Michael A. Cusumano, Richard W. Selby
Language:	English
Publisher:	Free Pr
Format:	Paperback
ISBN-10:	0684855313
ISBN-13:	9780684855318

Size
Length:	512 pages
Thickness:	1.2 in
Weight:	16 oz

Publisher's Note
Based on highly confidential interviews with personnel, internal memos, and top-secret company documents, this compelling portrait reveals the philosophy, style, and competitive strategies that have taken Microsoft to the heights of the high-tech industry.

The authors reveal Microsoft's product development, marketing, and organizational strategies

Today, Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on the world's 170 million computers. Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsofts astounding success?

Drawing on almost two years of on-site observation at Microsoft headquarters, eminent scientists Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby reveal many of Microsoft's innermost secrets. This inside report, based on forty in-depth interviews by authors who had access to confidential documents and project data, outlines the seven complementary strategies that characterize exactly how Microsoft competes and operates, including the "Brain Trust" of talented employees and exceptional management; "bang for the buck" competitive strategies and clear organizational goals that produce self-critiquing, learning, and improving; a flexible, incremental approach to product development; and a relentless pursuit of future markets.

Cusumano and Selby's masterful analysis successfully uncovers the distinctive way in which Microsoft has combined all of the elements necessary to get to the top of an enormously important industry -- and stay there.