A very nice introduction to the economics of electronic commerce with a good overview of its technological antecedents. Most of the book is devoted to more than twenty Stanford Business School case studies covering such companies as SAP, Siebel, eBay, Cisco, Webvan, and so on. Well-written and easy to read. Well worth the purchase!

I first encountered this book as part of my grandmother's current reading shortly after its publication. I next saw it as part of the required reading for an upper division undergraduate history course. I mention these to note that this book will interest the casual reader of history or the serious student. While it is scholarly, it's subject takes the reader on such a world tour that it practically qualifies as a travelogue. Curtin's accessible presentation makes this is an exciting as well as an informative read.

Curtin describes how the urge to exchange the goods uniquely available to specific areas has encouraged cultures to meet and exchange ideas as well as goods throughout the centuries. His examples of these exchanges, ranging from Greek city states and West African kingdoms, to Portuguese explorers in the interior of Brazil and Indonesian merchants so accustomed to sailing in search of commerce that they have no home on land, demonstrate the effects on individuals and societies of these meetings, and the accomodations neccesary between merchants to negotiate their differences and get the goods they desire. Along the way we see familiar historical characters in a new light, as with Curtin's discussion of the British trade with Russia and a reexamination of British-Indian trade from the Indian perspective, or his consideration of Spanish competition with the Dutch for South East Asian trade. Players one might not have considered emerge as major powers, as with Armenian trade, from their participation in the Silk Road between Ancient Rome and China, to their invaluable role as cross cultural ambassadors for most of Eurasia up to the nineteenth century. Curtin closes with a consideration of the birth of the modern global industrial economy.

This is a valuable book for any serious student of history and an interseting read for the lay reader as well.

The Internet has become an important resource for a variety of valuable information to meet a number of personal and business needs. Persons who operate a business have access to a number of Websites that offer helpful information, products, and services. Wayne Harris has written CyberTools for Business to offer a directory of 100 of the more important business related Websites available today.   CyberTools for Business serves as an excellent resource for meeting a variety of business needs such as buying and using computers and software, using search engines, gathering news online, marketing online, seeking business advice, obtaining business and company information, making online investments, shipping merchandise, travel arrangements, and a number of other essential services and sources of information.      The author provides an excellent review of each Website, offering helpful information about each company, including their history, the products and services they have to offer, and the significant contributions they can make to any business venture. For instance, read up on Amazon.com, Business Week Online, Forbes Online, Gateway 2000, The Small Business Administration, The Wall Street Journal, UPS, and ZDNet. Every reader will benefit from the contents of this book and the Websites provided!   There is plenty of business information in this helpful guide for anyone conducting a business. It's a real time saver. The book includes an added bonus. A helpful directory of thousands of company Websites is included at the back to provide quick and easy access to major businesses and corporations. Put this book to work and perhaps your company may one day be included in it!

This is a collection of papers that cover salient issues in data warehousing with an emphasis on business intelligence, data mining and knowledge management applications. While many of the papers in this book are more useful to technical professionals, there is a lot of material that will also be useful to marketing and competitive intelligence specialists in the business domain.

Some of the papers are more basic and introductory, such as "Justification of Data Warehousing Projects", "An Introduction to Information Technology and Business Intelligence" and "Some Issues in Design of Data Warehousing Systems". Some, however, address advanced topics such as "Data Mining Methods Databases and Statistics Point of Views" and "Incremental Data Allocation and Reallocation in Distributed Database Systems".

My personal favorite papers were "Specification of Components Based on the WebComposition Component Model" (reflecting professional interests in component-based development), "Complementing the Data Warehouse with Information Filtered from the Web", and "Using Business Rules Within a Design Process of Active Databases" (another area of professional interest).

In addition, the papers cover topics in data mining, data quality and knowledge management, which means that there is at least a few papers that will intersect with a reader's professional interests. The best audience for this book includes academics (the papers are citable), consultants who specialize in business intelligence and data mining, and organizations that have a solid base of experience with advanced uses of data warehousing.

In "Deerskins and Duffels", Kathryn Holland Braund provides a scholarly and easily readable study of the dynamics of the trade relationship between the English and the Creek Indian Nation. Braund delivers a good overview of the history of the Anglo-Creek trade; from its introduction in the late 17th century, how it triumphed against its competitors France and Spain in the 18th century, and its conclusion in the early 19th century with the removal of the Creeks by the American government. Importantly, the book shows how that both the British and the Creeks benefitted from their trade relationship. South Carolina and Georgia owe their colony's success to the economic windfall of the trade. The trade enabled the Creeks to become the preeminent Indian nation of the Southeast at the, sometimes, catastrophic cost of neighboring tribes. "Deerskins and Duffels" gives an interesting look into the life and activities of the frontier indian trader. However, he book's greatest value is its well-researched examination of the Creeks as consumers and how the Nation's demand for trade goods caused them to create a massive commercial deer harvesting enterprise. Braund has written a fully documented textbook on the subject of Anglo-Creek trade, but she has relayed the information in such a way that both the scholar and the casual reader will be well satisfied for having read it.

In my job, I don't need to get the nitty-gritty details of wireless technologies, I need to write reports and make suggestions for how wireless will improve our bottom line. This is the first book that puts wireless and mobile technology into a business perspective in a way that helps me make recommendations to my company.

I just finished the audio version of this book and am extremely impressed with the authors presentation of the many shifting paradigms we are seeing today. In the spirit of "Future Shock", but with a much more relevant slant, Digital Aboriginal gives us a look at what will happen and what is happening as the industrial society of years past becomes digital. The digital world affects our daily interactions with people, our families, our business and our culture. This is a great book for anyone in business or marketing field, as well as anyone who is impacted by digital communications and the new "'Net Speed" world of commerce. In fact, I highly recommend this for almost anyone. Easy to follow, and the audio version lets you hear both authors in their own words. A groundbreaking new viewpoint on our expanding world. Excellent! - Mark Greenia, author of "Energy Dynamics: Conscious Human Evolution"

There's some truly original thinking in here, and he shows how companies are applying it. You wonder why companies keep on using out dated thinking when they could be building online marketing strategies that work for online customers. If you're interested in buyer centric markets, here's how to fit them into your business. Most of the examples are from europe, so there's sites, techniques and ideas that I hadn't seen before. The author's from England, so the chapter on privacy is really hot.

Digital Marketing is a nice alternative to the current array of e-Business and marketing texts, which typically include anecdotes and pithy comments but little substantive information. The book is a nice balance of good writing and supporting data. The format, which entails having a different leading B-school professor author each chapter, makes the book especially interesting and information packed.

Definitely a text to read if you are looking for actionable information.

Scott Pope Senior Analyst Delphi Group

an excelllent book on digital signatures!!