ComputingFailure.com
War Stories from the Electronic Revolution
Published on 3. May 2001
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-13-091739-3 (ISBN)
Description
Understanding why software projects fail is the best way to make sure yours succeeds -- and the dotcom boom and bust teaches powerful new lessons every manager and developer must heed. Now, Robert Glass, the world's #1 expert on software project failure, has brought together dozens of the latest computer disasters -- on and off the Web. These are stories ripped from the latest headlines, each annotated with practical pointers for reducing your own software risk. Robert Glass presents find failures of vision, strategy, technology, business models, leadership, partnership, and much more -- all with one thing in common: specific lessons you can learn to become a more effective manager. Among the high-profile failures Glass chronicles are: Pets.com, Wingspan Bank, Toysmart, ValueAmerica, Mortgage.com, Boo.com, Netscape, AtomicPop, TheBigStore, Inacom, Pandesic, and DrKoop.com. Glass also presents failures in the public sector, as well as the IT failures that allowed the Love Bug virus to damage enterprises worldwide. For every IT manager, software architect, software engineer, developer, and project team member.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Upper Saddle River
United States
Publishing group
Pearson Education (US)
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
685 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-13-091739-3 (9780130917393)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
ROBERT GLASS is a consultant on software quality issues who has written more than a dozen books on the lessons of computing failures, including Software Runaways: Monumental Software Disasters, and Computing Calamities (Prentice Hall PTR). Glass owns his own company, Computing Trends, and writes a column on software engineering for two societal journals, Communications of the ACM and IEEE Software.
Content
1. Introduction.
2. Overview.
The Color Green: The Internet Bubble Broke Records, Rules, and Bank Accounts. For Dot-Coms, It's the Vision Thing. The Banality of Failure. Take It and Leave It.
3. Who Put the Duh in Dot-Com?
Angels of Death: Reality Bites Hard as String of Dot- Coms See Funding Dry Up. Startup Meltdown (Epatients). An American Dream Gone Bad (Value America). Pets.com's Demise. The End of the Line (Audiocafe). Back in the Saddle (MetaFinancial). In Floundering Swedish Dot-Com, a Cautionary Tale (Dressmart). Edfex Misses a Meal or Two. Atomic Pop's Final Encore. Pop.Com Goes Poof. Broken Wing (WingspanBank). Apocryphal Note Regarding Wingspan. Why Pandesic Didn't Pan Out. After a Life at Warp Speed, Netscape Logs Off. CEO: Partnership Hurt Toysmart. Interval: the Think Tank that Tanked. The Foreclosure at Mortgage.com. Dot-Com Liquidator.
4. Don't Forget the Dot-People in Dot-Com.
The Great Internet CON (David Stanley / Michael Fenne, Pixelon). Hidden Past Sheds Light on Ex-IQuest Chief's Odd Ways (John Paul Aleshe / Robert Hoquim). The Life and Near-Death of Drkoop.com (C. Everett Koop). Spooked: Money Men Liked BOO and BOO Liked Money; Then it All Went Poof. Anatomy of a Crash: From an Awkward Kid to a Star of Software to a Body in a Hotel (Phillip W. Katz). And Now the Big Bankruptcy (Robert McNulty, TheBigStore). What Price Glory? Personal Tales of the Dot-Com Trenches. What Goes Up...For Some Executives, the Internet Dream Has a Steep Downside.
5. Just Because It's the Dot-Com Era Doesn't Mean That There Aren't Other (Bad) Computing Failure Stories.
Failure From the Top. Adios, Amiga. Breakthrough or Snake Oil? (Transmeta). Computer Crash (InaCom). Failure at the Bottom. To Hell and Back. Another Trip to Hell. Her Majesty's Flying I.T. Circus. Lost in Chaos: Chronology of a Failure. County Blew $38 Million: Here's What Went Wrong. Double Jeopardy (Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust). Virginia Team Stops "Giant Sucking Sound With Web".
6. Viruses: Failure With a Cause.
'Love Bug' Case Against Student Gets Dismissed as Laws Lag. Cradle of Love (the Love Bug virus).
7. Conclusions and Wrap-up.
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Change Their Titles.
About the Author.
Sources.
Index.
2. Overview.
The Color Green: The Internet Bubble Broke Records, Rules, and Bank Accounts. For Dot-Coms, It's the Vision Thing. The Banality of Failure. Take It and Leave It.
3. Who Put the Duh in Dot-Com?
Angels of Death: Reality Bites Hard as String of Dot- Coms See Funding Dry Up. Startup Meltdown (Epatients). An American Dream Gone Bad (Value America). Pets.com's Demise. The End of the Line (Audiocafe). Back in the Saddle (MetaFinancial). In Floundering Swedish Dot-Com, a Cautionary Tale (Dressmart). Edfex Misses a Meal or Two. Atomic Pop's Final Encore. Pop.Com Goes Poof. Broken Wing (WingspanBank). Apocryphal Note Regarding Wingspan. Why Pandesic Didn't Pan Out. After a Life at Warp Speed, Netscape Logs Off. CEO: Partnership Hurt Toysmart. Interval: the Think Tank that Tanked. The Foreclosure at Mortgage.com. Dot-Com Liquidator.
4. Don't Forget the Dot-People in Dot-Com.
The Great Internet CON (David Stanley / Michael Fenne, Pixelon). Hidden Past Sheds Light on Ex-IQuest Chief's Odd Ways (John Paul Aleshe / Robert Hoquim). The Life and Near-Death of Drkoop.com (C. Everett Koop). Spooked: Money Men Liked BOO and BOO Liked Money; Then it All Went Poof. Anatomy of a Crash: From an Awkward Kid to a Star of Software to a Body in a Hotel (Phillip W. Katz). And Now the Big Bankruptcy (Robert McNulty, TheBigStore). What Price Glory? Personal Tales of the Dot-Com Trenches. What Goes Up...For Some Executives, the Internet Dream Has a Steep Downside.
5. Just Because It's the Dot-Com Era Doesn't Mean That There Aren't Other (Bad) Computing Failure Stories.
Failure From the Top. Adios, Amiga. Breakthrough or Snake Oil? (Transmeta). Computer Crash (InaCom). Failure at the Bottom. To Hell and Back. Another Trip to Hell. Her Majesty's Flying I.T. Circus. Lost in Chaos: Chronology of a Failure. County Blew $38 Million: Here's What Went Wrong. Double Jeopardy (Oklahoma City Water Utilities Trust). Virginia Team Stops "Giant Sucking Sound With Web".
6. Viruses: Failure With a Cause.
'Love Bug' Case Against Student Gets Dismissed as Laws Lag. Cradle of Love (the Love Bug virus).
7. Conclusions and Wrap-up.
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Change Their Titles.
About the Author.
Sources.
Index.