BKFRELCO.RVW   960125
 
"Frontiers of Electronic Commerce", Kalakota/Whinston, 1996, 0-201-84520-2,
U$49.50
%A   Ravi Kalakota kalakota@uhura.cc.rochester.edu
%A   Andrew Whinston abw@uts.cc.utexas.edu
%C   1 Jacob Way, Reading, MA   01867-9984
%D   1996
%G   0-201-84520-2
%I   Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.
%O   U$49.50 800-822-6339 617-944-3700 Fax: (617) 944-7273 bkexpress@aw.com
%P   848
%T   "Frontiers of Electronic Commerce"
 
The title of this book could refer to new technologies for trading and
transactions.  It could refer to the new forms of marketing needed in the
online community, or the marketing of information, or the new demands of
intellectual property, or electronic shopping.  In fact, the authors have
attempted to address all of these areas, plus public policy regarding
information infrastructures, telco/cable/ISP competition, security and
firewalls, corporate data warehousing, software agents, TCP/IP internals,
multimedia, broadband, wireless communications, and SGML (Standard Generalized
Markup Language).  They have tried to do it all, and, inevitably, have failed. 
The result is no more than the usual "Infomercial Supercliche" book, with a
business bent.
 
There may be some who say that this assessment is too harsh.  The book is
intended for a business audience, rather than technical professionals.  A lack
of technical rigour is allowable.  The book does not, however, do any great
service to the business community either.  While thoroughly strewn with
technical jargon, and extremely terse business examples, it does not provide
the non-technical reader with the underlying concepts and understanding
necessary to make reasonable decisions in a highly technical environment.  It
is verbose, bloated with academic style, and lacking in insight.
 
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996   BKFRELCO.RVW   960125

======================
ROBERTS@decus.ca    rslade@vanisl.decus.ca   rslade@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca
Ah! When I were lad, we used to 'ave t'wait 40 milliseconds on noisy channel
 for a network link to come oop--and login both ends! - per Linda Richards
Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94663-2 (800-SPRINGER)