Imperial Purple

Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman
In Search of Stupidity
Apress 2nd Edition 2006

I’m a long way off base with this one – not only is it three years old (in the second edition) but it has nothing to do with Fantasy/SF. I’m adding it anyway because a) a lot of SpecFic readers are geeks and b) it’s a great book and c) it’s my site and I can do whatever I want. So here it is.

It is in part an answer to In Search of Excellence – a self-congratulating book about the excellence of American companies written in 1982. Most of these companies are either gone now or in crisis. Chapman takes the opposite approach and looks at the high-tech industries from the seventies onwards and how a series of dreadful decisions left Intel and Microsoft in a position of complete dominance.

There are chapters on the decline of IBM – the horrible debacle of OS/2 (remember that?) and the loss of the PC market; on how an inferior operating system called DOS became the industry standard; on how Ashton-Tate and dBase managed to alientate their own developer base; on how Borland managed to choke itself with acquisitions; and on much, much more.

It is all written in a wry, entertaining style, often illustrated by Chapman’s own experiences in the industry. It is, of course, written with the clear vision of hindsight but there are important lessons here for anyone attempting to invest in the high-tech area. Geeks will recognise others (and possibly even themselves) in the parade of larger-than-life characters.

The book has its own website (www.insearchofstupidity.com) which is in itself worth a look. As well as excerpts from the book it has a lot of supporting material including an online museum of stupidity.

Thoroughly recommended, even if you have never had anything to do with high tech. A good four-star read.