Customer Rating: 
Summary: Throwing away good money
Comment: I purchased this book because it was an assigned textbook in an IT management class I took. The professor indicated that she selected it based on the advice of others, but admitted after classes began that she would not be using it again. Before continuing, I should point out that I don't have an IT background, nor am I pursuing an IT degree. The class for which this book was assigned was an introductory course. People with broader backgrounds in IT might get more out of this than I did.
I confess I didn't read the entire book. This was due to the fact that I found the first 100 pages to be more or less incomprehensible. It's as though the authors wrote down everything they could think of without bothering to organize it, filter it, or consider whether it was relevant or sensible.
A good portion of this book is filled with summaries of other people's ideas (I know that because many of the paragraphs begin with "So-and-so says...") and a ton of cited business graphics that contain a whole lot of lines, boxes, arrows, and circles, but convey very little readily meaningful information. I'll bet if I drew a chart that plotted the relationship between bacon prices, CPU speed, and corresponding possibility of global conquest by the color orange, the authors would jump at the opportunity to include it in the next edition. At one point, the authors attempt to compare the various stages of technology adoption to a camel. I see, so technology adoption = a camel?
Save yourself some misery and avoid this book. I just wish I could give it negative stars.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Review by Grad Student
Comment: This was my textbook for a graduate class in Information Systems and I enjoyed the book very much. The first chapter is a great introduction to show where the world of IT is and how we got there. Also the case studies are worth the price alone since they take real world corporations and offer insight into the improvements/mistakes they have made. Up to date also b/c it covers modern topics such as SOA and ESB.
Customer Rating:
Summary: IS Myths Revealed
Comment: Until I studied this book as part my BEng(Hons) curriculam, I was considering that the Innformation Systems as a dumb subject and often relating MIS to the IS. After reading this book there is shift in my paradigm. Barbara starts this with brief history on IS and its strategic importance and goes on explaining the concept of group support and decision support systems. Its a valuable asset for any IS practitioner or a studying professional. I felt certain chapters like networking and database should not part of this book as the IS is more of a concept rather than implementation. However I rate this as highest since this is the best book I have ever seen in the IS engineering.
Customer Rating:
Summary: From a network administrator's perspective
Comment: I read this book as part of my first course in a Ph.D.-MIS program. I thought it was a great overview and history of MIS, and provided insight into alternative IS management styles and strategies. The case studies were relevent, current, well written and interesting. I recommend this book for all network and systems administrators. It gives insight into what thought processes should be occurring at the CIO and IS manager levels.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great paperweight, good consolidation of other people's work
Comment: This book provides various sources of information but no analysis by the book's authors. It is a patch work of case studies, excerpts, and paraphrasing of other texts to which I hope the original authors are getting paid royalties for.Some of the diagrams are simplistic, others are useless. More than half of them are from other sources.
The book seems to formulate points of interest (e.g. traditional, evolving, and present-day IT roles) without providing analysis of why and how this affects future trends in IS management.
I had to write a review after reading nebulous fluff like, "Being a manufacturer, LifeScan has instituted quality processes." (which successful company doesn't) or "Way back in 1964,..." (not just back, but WAY back). When you do read something of slight interest it is almost always followed by something like, "so says Mr. so-and-so, in this-paper-that-he-wrote." (e.g. pp. 126-127 whenever "Rayport and Sviokla" is mentioned - 4 times in about 1 page of text and in every paragraph - the authors are paraphrasing a point Rayport and Sviokla made)
I'm truly amazed this book is this bad after five revisions. The authors seem to have the right information, but they really need to provide their own insights and analysis. And also have my high school english teacher review it to cut the fluff out.
