Rating: 
Summary: Dull
Review: One thing that I especially enjoyed about this book is that it almost completely avoided any gratuitous Gates/Microsoft bashing that appears to be vogue these days. Instead, Cusumano and Yoffie take the reader on a detailed yet interesting dissection of the organizations and decision making processes of the top brass at both Microsoft and Netscape. I also liked the way the authors would candidly point out where bad decisions/strategies were made, but fairly analyzed why they failed, and why they might have seemed like good decisions at the time. The allusions and comparisons to judo strategy in business were interesting as well.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, objective look at the Browser Battle
Review: One thing that I especially enjoyed about this book is that it almost completely avoided any gratuitous Gates/Microsoft bashing that appears to be vogue these days. Instead, Cusumano and Yoffie take the reader on a detailed yet interesting dissection of the organizations and decision making processes of the top brass at both Microsoft and Netscape. I also liked the way the authors would candidly point out where bad decisions/strategies were made, but fairly analyzed why they failed, and why they might have seemed like good decisions at the time. The allusions and comparisons to judo strategy in business were interesting as well.
Rating:
Summary: Dull
Review: Probably fine as a business tome, but as an entertaining read, I found this a failure. I hardly got through the first few pages; the books starts with a long, obvious and patronising exposition about how internet has transformed our lives and what a revolution it's been. It reminded me a lot of "The Road Ahead" by Bill Gates.
Microsoft has been commercially successful, but at the cost of integrity. It has none whatsoever. This may indeed be Microsoft's downfall in the end, because the hatred towards this company is reaching a fever pitch. More and more users will realise that they can get by using other operating systems and products, supported by companies who have a less selfish vision for the future of computing.
Rating:
Summary: Best for students of software development
Review: Short on story, long on the nitty-gritty of software development, this book is interesting if you want to figure out how to do software. For a good story, go elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: Very detailed but ultimately inconclusive.
Review: The authors could have learned much from Lorraine Spurge and her book about MCI (style, summaries and learning points). However, this book does give a very detailed account of what has been labelled the 'browser wars'. There are plenty of learning points for anyone interested in becoming involved in providing Internet software/hardware, but for me not enough of an insight into the ongoing politics, marketing and personalities involved in the battle for supremacy on the web. The book is much more clinical than say Kara Swisher's account of AOL. In Swisher's book much of the technical stuff is ignored in favour of a newspaper like style. There appear to be 4 core principles around which the book is structured and apart from the introduction there are 5 chapters to go through the creation of the company, its competitive strategy as well as its development and design strategies. The last chapter is really a summary of lessons learned. Nevertheless the book does introduce concepts such as judo and sumo strategies: judo where you use your opponents strength against itself as in the case of Netscape's approach to allowing its browser to be open as opposed to Microsoft's proprietary approach. Sumo is where you go head to head, a dangerous proposition where your competitor is someone as powerful as Microsoft. " Don't moon the giant," says Ram Shriram (VP OEM). There are other nice quotes such as "eating your own dog food" (using the systems you develop within your own company) which lighten what can be a tedious book to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Very worth reading
Review: The book offers very comprehensive description and analysis of Netscape.The best statement I like in the book is : "When our team grew beyond a certain point, they began to resemble a 200-person three-legged race", by Netscape's Bob Lisbonne.
Rating:
Summary: End of Story
Review: The lesson this reader learned from Competing on Internet Time: Lessons from Netscape and Its Battle With Microsoft is that you cannot publish a book on this topic in current time. Today we know that Netscape was dominated by Microsoft on three fronts. Microsoft attacked the Java technology that was Netscape's future, they eliminated Netscape's revenue stream by paying for Navigator browser removal and IE free distribution, and they forced Netscape to support past spaghetti code to match Microsoft's browser release schedules. Netscape existed for only four years. It, like many software startups, quickly built up a brand name and was sold. End of story. But David B. Yoffie and Michael A. Cusumano would like us to believe that Netscape is (or could have been) an on going competitive concern. The first question asked by the authors is "Why will Netscape be around when we finish this book about a year and a half from now?" Rather than pursue that question in any depth, the authors quote a Netscape official and then present principles they believe should apply when a company operates on Internet time. Some of those principles, for professional software developers and managers, border on malpractice. Chapter Five, Development Strategy, is particularly troublesome. Responsible presentations on this topic relate rapid application design and object oriented tools to classical approaches and will present a life cycle that includes design, development, testing, and maintenance. The authors ignore function point analysis; lines of code are presented as if they were representative of effort. In a presentation sure to anger any CFO, a model for project management that ignores budgets and cost is presented. I purchased this book because of its potential for explaining the Microsoft antitrust case. Certainly it has value for that purpose. It presents, for example, relevant material regarding the importance of Java to Netscape's development efforts, the use of fewer testers owing to possibly more mature coding staff, and the inability to get Netscape customers and investors to wait for a browser based on Java. The latter forced Netscape into maintaining and releasing a code base it had planned on abandoning. But the reader has to draw many conclusions. The authors note that "It is perfectly legal to win a near-monopoly through good business practices. But, once you have a dominant position, special rules apply." Does that mean that Netscape should still exist, or does it mean that the principles presented in the book have little practical value? Certainly the work could have been better. It could have predicted the eventual sale of Netscape, instead of, in the last chapters, presenting a prescription for improvement. There will be other books on Netscape vs. Microsoft, by individuals closer to the action. It will be interesting to compare this work with accounts from the practitioners.
Rating:
Summary: Focus and Execution (not!)
Review: These two business school professors (...) interviewed many people at Netscape and elsewhere. Though the conclusions do not come through as strongly in the book as they might, we learn that Netscape made three major mistakes: 1) it did not focus and execute on a long-term strategy, 2) it's software engineering practices were not as good as Microsoft's, and 3) it's software engineers were not as talented as Microsoft's. The biggest mistake was Netscape kept changing its mind about what business it was in. As a result, it was not able to execute hard enough and long enough to win. Focus and Execution are key element of any business success!
Rating:
Summary: As good if not better than Yoffie's regular lectures.
Review: This book captures the essence of the battle between Microsoft and Netscape by utlizing the Judo Strategy as a frame work. Such analogy reinforces imporatance of strategic thnkings in making decisions.--even on internet time. The YPO HK and China chapters found this book very interesting.
Rating:
Summary: entertaining insight to the browser wars
Review: This book gives a good insight on the web browser wars. As times are changing towards global economy and eCommerce corporate strategies for winning the mindshare and marketshare is also changing. This is a good book to learn from the success and mistakes of Netscape and Microsoft. If you are planning to put together a eCommerce strategy for your company you can learn a lot from here
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