I found this book nice to read but pretty poor in terms of practical information. If you're looking for material to waffle at a VC it's all here but don't expect to sit down and start writing applications after reading it...

This book doesn't purport to cover programming. Instead it is a comprehensive guide that describes ebXML from business and technical perspectives, and does so is such a clear, well written manner that it deserves 5 stars. If you're more interested in writing ebXML applications you may want "ebXML Simplified" by Eric Chiu (ISBN 0471204757), which shows how and provides sample code.

What I most like about this book is the way the authors manage to integrate the technical details with the business value of ebXML without going over the heads of business users or talking down to IT professionals. I also like the fact that the book is kept up to date on the companion web site, and the additional information that is provided there to supplement what is covered in the book.

The highlights, in my opinion, are:

Chapter 2, ebXML in a nutshell. This chapter uses clear prose and illustrations to portray ebXML, how it fits into an enterprise solution, and all of the underpinnings. If you only read these 30 pages you'll come away with a solid understanding of what it is and how it works. The next chapter, ebXML at Work, takes this material a step further with case studies that are realistic.

All of Part II, which shows how ebXML fits into the much larger XML picture (including an interesting history of XML and how it evolved from SGML). History aside, this section ties together a number of related technologies, such as Java, XML, HTML and platforms. In fact, the four legs of a table metaphor that the authors use is one of the most elegant depictions of the interrelationships I've seen. They don't stay at high level, however. The book drills down into DTDs, and also does an excellent job of describing the business processes and technical architecture in terms that anyone can grasp. I especially liked the way UML and use cases were introduced.

If you want a book that describes ebXML (and in a larger sense, XML) from business and technical perspectives this is the one to read.

This book provides a nice combination of the technical underpinnings of ebXML with an explanation of the new business strategies that it makes possible.

Too many managers believe that they can conceive and implement an eBusiness strategy without understanding the underlying technologies. This hubris contributed to the recent rash of web business failures. The Kotok and Webber book does an admirable job in explaining the technical to the business mind and the business to the technical mind. And I believe that even many of the more technically inclined will benefit from the history of how ebXML came about and how it leverages but is fundamentally different from Electronic Data Interchange.

The global focus and variety of examples from both business and not-profit organizations is also a welcome widening of the normal discussion of eBusiness.

I would read this book before many of the supposedly more business savvy tomes on eBusiness.

I bought this book because I have a lot of 1980s and 1990s action figures, comic books, magazines, trading cards, and the such. I was hoping to finally find someone to sell them to. Well, I contacted some people listed in the book, and ... I've still got the stuff. If you have something made before 1970, this book may be of use to you. But if you're stuff is after 1970, don't waste your money on this UNCOMPREHENSIVE book. Hey, Tony Hyman, how about writing/compiling a separate volume covering items made after 1970?

If your going to have a yard sale or throw something away, wait till you read this book. I use the book and found thing's worth some real money, that I thought was trash.. So do your self a favor and buy the book. It's worth the money

I found the book in the library and when I found I'd bookmarked 40 or so pages, I decided to buy myself a copy (used, for half price). Good advice for working through an estate, which is what I'm dealing with--what to sell to collectors and what should go through a yard sale. Collectors have been very nice to work with, if they won't buy my item they will recommend somewhere else. My first item to sell was a musical instrument; the collector gave me $50 more than the highest bid at a local music store. The book has been very reassuring to both my mother and me to know what's junk and what is worth 10 or 20 times more than we'd expect from a yard sale, or at least double what we've seen on ebay. For the most part, not for newer collectibles (past 1970s), but book has an extensive section listing collectors of fast food, pop culture, and similar items which may only be 10 or 15 years old. Look for an older edition at the library to check the format; I've found this to be an invaluable resource, and several friends have purchased copies of this book as they watch me go through the "old junk" in the house. We all use it so much that we simply refer to it as, "the book".

This book is overwritten and filled with jargon and acronyms. By acronyms, I don't mean commonly used ones like ERP, CRM, B2B, B2E, and B2C but rather ones like EEP, EMP, BIP, BCE, UIP, EAI, PCSB, A2A ODS, KRC, EII, EBSTA, VE, DW, CPF, TPRC, MTDCAA ... I could go on (and on). If you enjoy reading acronyms and hopelessly convoluted, pompous, rambling, unfocused prose, then look no further and buy this book. Otherwise, at least preview it before ordering.

The narrative is very abstract and non-specific. There are no concrete examples or business cases. The author makes many generalizations about technology and business without backing them up. Portals are not even discussed until a quarter of the way in -- before that there is a seeming endless primer on e-business. Obvious and widely accepted facts are presented and repeated many times. Everything is repeated many times.

The author suggests that this book might be suitable for a Masters-level student. I'll give him that it reads like a textbook, but that doesn't HIDE the fact there is very little information here and what is here is nearly inaccessible due to the style of writing.

I finished this book because I though that it would get better at some point. It didn't. I've read hundreds of computer-related titles about software architecture, development methodologies, programming, and technology in general, and this is in the bottom 10%.

There's plenty of hype, and lots of information, but no common understanding - even now in December of 2002 - as to what constitutes a corporate portal, most importantly, from a technology perspective. After reading this book, I strongly feel it does shed some light. It helped me to understand that the label "portal," as broadly applied, has two levels of meanings-one specific (application oriented) and one conceptual (architecture oriented), and that focusing on the conceptual meaning is very important to get enterprise integration efforts under control. The #1 book ("MUST READ") for a serious architect!!!

Davydov's book is exactly what our application development organization needed to ramp up its portal strategy. This book is a voice talking beyond the "silver-bullet" hype of all kinds of Internet technologies to the bigger picture. I'a a seasoned software engineer and project manager, and this book helped me to get a firm grasp on the problem/opportunity/goal before jumping down to the details.

How to drive value to customers thru the use of e-commerce represents the central theme of the book. This text outlines how companies enable E-commerce through out their organization. Each aspect of the typical business organization, purchasing, engineering, planning and scheduling, marketing and sales are examined chapter by chapter in order to create a model for transforming the traditional business to E-Business. The authors appear to be targeting mid-level managers in medium size organizations who, from the author's perspective, are computer illiterate. Their analysis is outdated and does not represent the current state of supply chain commerce

The text was outdated even as it was published. Not only have Fortune 500 companies systems in place that the author represents as the future enhancement, but hospitals, schools and government agencies surpassed the frame of reference for this book by at least five years. E-commerce does offer opportunities to the companies that can seize right moment, product, or service that can exploit the juncture. Continued advancement in the software packages will only enhance the use of this media. But, be cautious, a company wishing to pursue e-commerce needs to establish goals and objectives and not simply use trial and error as these authors suggest.

Use this book as generic resource. The premise of the books intent still represents the current evolution of e-commerce. I believe e-business simply achieved Poirier's and Bauer's future expectations before they could publish this book

The authors touch on current supply chain issues that are quite relevant in the new e-world.

Charles C. Poirier and Michael J. Bauer assert that the future of the American company will resemble an Internet version of the Japanese Keiretsu, interlocked firms within firms. This new value chain constellation - which shares buying, selling and customer information in real time - will offer advantages and services that no single company could ever hope to match working solo. We from getAbstract predict that this will become a necessary textbook for any CEO or CPO who wants to maximize profits via supply chain optimization.

In the first five chapters, the book gives valuable historical background on the development of Internet, Unixes, Web, and Internet-related tools; encouragingly uncovers the Open Source philosophy; analyzes Open Source in business terms; explains various license types and legal issues; scrutinizes different organizational types, mainly network organizations. It is of vital importance for any Open Source Project participant to understand the philosophy of the Open Source and be aware of the history of the movement.

However, the book does not reach its goal, Managing Open Source Projects. The book title is misleading. The core two chapters, Managing a Virtual Team and Managing Distributed Open Source Projects aren't practical and not very deep.

The final chapters are a quick glance on tools and technologies for building Open Source Projects.

The information given in this book is not enough to start and manage an Open Source project. This book however may be helpful for anyone wanting to contribute to an existing Open Source project.

This is a most valuable book on Open Source. There is very little serious information around for those who want to use this model in practice. This one fills the gap. There are evidently several kinds of projects that can benefit, both technically and business wise, from using Open Source as a development model. Read this book before you start! It will help.

I am very glad for having bought the book, it is extremely interesting. Chapter 1 is more than a historical introduction, is the best written chronicle of 25 years that changed the world making everyone's life so different. It really is a masterpiece.

Perhaps I merely expected too much, however, I found this book to concentrate on only half of the battle in creating a successful internet business. It gave a general summary of the Internet and the different types of hosting methods for the site, and then concentrated completely on promotion. That hardly constitutes a solid explanation of the subject, beginning to end. What about, in detail, managing orders, purchasing neccessary equipment, dealing with manufacturers and retailers, etc? I can't say I'd reccomend this for anyone seeking an in-depth explanation of all aspects of internet businesses.

the book was very useful, and interesting

The book cuts all the hype around E-Commerce phenomenon and boldly states that Internet ultimately is a tool, a very powerful one though, and like any other tool is as good as the user.

As an Electronic Commerce Consultant from Bombay, India, I really like the way autor has integrated real life marketing strategies with ones on the Internet. The strategies are applicable to businesses globally, and not just in countries which are way up in Internet maturity and penetration.

Purdy is best at describing the complexities of ancient/old/nearly new nations and cultures that have come together in an age of media and marketing. Sometimes the threads are a little hard to follow, but it's clear that is because there are so many stories to tell. The two best things about this book are: (1) it is refreshing in the "fer us er agin' us" attitude in our leadership to see a young scholar be so adept at describing the nuances of the real world - I hope he sent a copy to the President; and (2) referring to Madison's Federalist No. 10 again points us to the messy, frustrating business of democracy with a backdrop of good old human nature, and the zealots of our day are not likely to succeed in their vision of the perfect world they think they can have if they just get us all to agree to their agenda. Purdy does mostly a good job of not identifying with the right nor the left nor any prevailing point of view - while giving if not credence at least plausible explanations as to why people adhere to various competing ideologies, philosophies, or theories. Given that he had the good fortune to land an opportunity where he could devote many months to such a study, it makes one wonder, if everyone could go on some sort of sabbatical and contemplate the world we live in, might we all be the wiser for it. So many people are wrapped up in the demands of their daily lives, they barely have time for TV news, let alone truly educating themselves in history and cultures. If they could read one book, Being America would be a great start to understanding current events and why it's not likely to be smooth sailing any time soon. The latter part of the book seems to bog down some, overall less satisfactory than the first half which is almost a page-turner. Overall a great read, though - worth sticking to through to the end.

For those who may have found Purdy's "Common Sense" entirely too earnest, and too impressed with his own high moral seriousness, "Being America" may come as something of a welcome surprise. Purdy's earnestness is still there, but it has apparently been tempered by its more complex and confounding subject: the American Empire.

Taking Edmund Burke as his philosophical muse, believing Burke's positions on the American colonies and India are appropriate for today (pro-independence for the American colonies, and against the British exploitation of India), he uses Burke as a compass to help guide him through the confusing and sometimes dangerous waters created by American foreign policy over the past generation. Giving voice both to those who have been bounced around and/or sunk in the wake of America's exercise in gunboat and cultural diplomacy, as well as those who have been manning the bridge, Purdy does achieve useful insights.

He clearly hopes his readers will find this view unusual, an antidote to the noisome cheerleading of the pro-globalization crowd who, he says, believe that all nations and cultures, for their own eventual good, should stop throwing up sandbags against the flood tide of the liberal economic system and instead, welcome its flows of capital and the disciplinary virtues of the commerce that come along with it. Or their opposites who maintain that cultural and political diversity are being ravaged by the imposition of the liberal economic ethos through agency of the WTO and its powerful sponsors, who see globalization as just the latest version of colonialism as practiced by a new public relations conscious class of blood-sucking imperialists.

Purdy does steer a steady course between these extremes, partly because he has a searching, almost novelistic perspective that attempts to see the essential humanity of those who are not American and who are attempting to come to terms with the new "American" world they inhabit. In one instance, for example, he talks a member of an environmentalist group in Indonesia which has taken up the strategies of Green Peace to expose logging firms' illegal harvesting in the rain forest, who admits that he likes Osama Bin Laden because he is "confident" -- the kind of personal quality that a pundit here in the States might use to describe a presidential candidate. More and more, Purdy seems to be suggesting, image politics, born in the U.S.A., has become the politics of the world.

Another riveting interview is with Beka Economopoulos, who works for the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), and who thinks of herself in the same way a McKinsey consultant might think about corporate branding, except of course, that she and her associates wish to turn the power of the brand against itself. By using the media to spread the word about Home Depot's purchase of timber from old growth forests, RAN forced Home Depot to swear off such purchases and institute new policies. These kinds of guerilla attacks, Purdy notes, have been very effective in the new brand-driven economy. But as Purdy also points out, it has also served to make the corporation more covert and cagier. Further, groups like RAN are forced to use the strategies and tactics of the public relations firms to get heard. Without putting people on the street as the left once did, such groups remain captive to a media system that may or may not cover their latest publicity stunt.

Purdy also discusses the fickle sovereignty of the media and the post-modern interpenetration of commerce and image politics in his re-telling of the tale of the Zapatista insurrection. So effective was this made for TV guerilla "army" that they forced the Mexican government -- with the media eyes of the world upon them in the wake of NAFTA -- to parley with them on substantive landholding issues whereas in a former era they would have been rounded up and shot. Purdy notes with irony that when the Zapatistas marched to Mexico City for the meeting with the president (guarded by Mexican troops) they were met with crowds of people wearing their movement's signature black masks -- which were being sold as souvenirs by street vendors. Purdy points out that another South American revolutionary group took up the Zapatistas PR strategies (such as mailing gifts to reporters with snappy revolutionary sayings enclosed), only to find the media would only cover one PR savvy revolutionary group at a time.

Purdy, turning his eye on America, suggests that America should try to stop being both so "universalistic" and "parochial," and rather, adopt more humane, more cosmopolitan views. America, which took its mission to be the exemplar Enlightenment's project of liberty and equality, which thinks of itself as occupying and exporting the "realm of revelation," can be blind to the way it imposes these views on peoples who have no wish to be enfolded in its embrace. Another difficulty Purdy notes is that American foreign policy has become so captive to the free market ideology that it has substituted for its banner of civil freedom the banner of consumer freedom. He believes we have done, and can do better.

At the end of "Being America" Purdy places himself on the political map as a "democratic nationalist" in acknowledging his debt to Michael Lind as an initial critic of his manuscript. Lind, the former associate of Wm. F. Buckley, abandoned what he felt was a morally compromised movement interested only in power, to expound a position of "democratic nationalism," a worldview exemplified by such antecedents as Alexander Hamilton, Teddy Roosevelt, and Truman. Like Lind Purdy believes American power must be used, and Purdy's counsel of moderation, of America acknowledging past mistakes in foreign policy while setting a future course which more truly reflects America's older civil religion of liberty and equality, is a welcome one. Conservative, yes, but in the tradition of Burke, not those radical interventionists who would falsely sail under those colors today.

I was hesitant to purchase this book because a) Purdy is often lambasted as the pseudo-intellectual soundbite guy of Gen X/Y, and b) savage reviews of his first book (which I have not read) implied that it was irredeemably awful.

After reading some of his articles in The Atlantic and other publications, I was convinced that Mr. Purdy wasn't an idiot, but I still wasn't completely sold. In shorter articles, I found his prose to be somewhat stilted.

Purdy's voice is much more suited to the longer format of a book. One adapts to his idiosyncratic syntax fairly quickly, and afterward the book flows quite well.

Purdy discusses liberalism in this book in a fairly broad and classical sense. While he is interested in exploring ideas, the book never becomes too dry or theoretical because the more philosophical musings are interspersed with descriptions of his encounters with people in various parts of the world.

While it would be specious to draw too many conclusions from such a limited sample, Purdy amply illustrates the dangers of oversimplification; the views of those he encounters are more nuanced and conflicted that one might expect, especially as they pertain to U.S. power.

Having actually been a CFO, I was excited to learn how I might improve on how I do things, challenge any old thinking I had picked up, etc. However, this book says nothing new. In fact, it says almost nothing at all.

PwC has assembled a collection of jargon and case studies that are so high-level as to be of no use. I give it one star instead of zero because the eCFO checklists at the end of each chapter are, in fact, useful in terms of giving you some things to think about -- but you don't need to buy the whole book just for that. Check it out at the library -- better yet, just make photocopies of the checklists.

Is this book also an indication of what you get by hiring PwC consultants?

For a real CFO, this one is actually too heavy to read through. As for the practician, although graced with beautiful charts and diagrams, it ain't provide any real beef, either. It is a sample of "anything about nothing and nothing about anything". Vague!

The gang at PricewaterhouseCoopers discusses the chief financial officer's role in the changing corporate landscape. The eCFO is no longer only involved with financial management, but must become an internal venture capitalist, opportunity seeker and risk taker who works closely with the CEO to anticipate trends, recommend new enterprises and manage company investments as a portfolio of financial ventures. The authors draw on in-depth interviews with leading CFOs, case studies, independent research and analysis of the latest best practices. Though charts, bullets and boxes impart a textbook flavor, and the trend material is a little familiar, the book is generally solid and informative. We from getAbstract suggest it to CFOs and CEOs who need that "e" awareness, or to any manager who is trying to drag the boss into the 21st century, or even the 20th.

I find this book provides an insightful deconstruction of things past - the B2B/B2C business models of the new economy pre April 2001, but neither provides insight into the realities of todays strategic use of the internet as a business channel/media, nor of lessons learned from past failures.

More insights from business experience, not academic deconstruction please!

It seems that all books that refer to ecommerce and respective issues are all alike. This is not a bad book. On the contrary, it makes some very interesting points. But it is no breakthrough. It's just a different way of categorizing the different forms of business currently online. The proposed models are undoubtedly interesting and pretty much cover everything. Unless you are new in this area, don't bother.

I was looking for an e-business book that would be useful for the MBA classes I teach - this fits the bill nicely. Readable, not technical, not overly academic, and not full of the usual e-hype! In fact, tends to a negative outlook. The "atomic business models" are familiar, but it's worthwhile to have them defined with some rigour. Useful mini-case studies and anecdotes.

I agree with Peggy, this book doesn't have much meat even just for surveying the internet stocks landscape. "100 Best Internet Stocks to Own" by Greg Kyle does a much better job in this respect by providing more information on each company's background, major turn points of stock prices in their history, analysis of business challenges as well as opportunities. More informative and more insightful. Put these two books side by side, you'll notice the difference in no time.

Peggy Mannix has completely missed the point (and value) of Walden's latest book, and apparently didn't read his introduction. Yes, many of the stocks have gone down in value due to the correcting marketplace, but the point of the book is to provide guidance for those of us who want to include Internet companies as a part of our portfolios. I found the discussion about the many facets of the Internet marketplace extremely helpful in understanding how the new economy operates. As the title says, these stocks are "for the long run." If you're looking for get rich quick picks, look elsewhere. If you're looking for solid advice about incorporating internet stocks into your portfolio, Walden's book can be of tremendous help.

What a find! This book lays out in clear, easy to understand terms the important points of Internet investing. I learned the ins and outs of how to invest in Internet stocks, and was able to get a real understanding of the key sectors of the Internet economy. The profiles of these 100 top companies were concise and well-written, as I've come to expect from Gene Walden's other 100 Best Stock books. And the tables and graphs in each profile provided a good perspective on the 100 companies. It's the best source yet for Internet investing! I would recommend it for any investor who wants to make big money in the Internet market.