Brad Feld

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Book Review: Microsoft and Blackberries

May 09, 2006
Category Books

On my flight to Paris Sunday, I managed to finally finish Partnering With Microsoft and then proceeded to snarf down Who Moved My Blackberry?

I’ve been dragging around Partnering With Microsoft for the past few weeks as I crammed in a bunch of travel before my Paris trip.  I’ve “partnered with Microsoft” in various ways, shapes, and forms through numerous companies over the past 18 years.  While the history of this is interesting, it’s not nearly as important or relevant as the current reality.  Partnering With Microsoft does a superb job of describing how to partner with Microsoft – covering the broad spectrum of types of partnerships, giving lots of examples of what works and what doesn’t work – while immersing the reader in the acronyms and styles that are critical to being successful with working with Microsoft.  While this isn’t an exciting book, if you do anything with Microsoft, it is a must read. 

Who Moved My Blackberry? – on the other hand – was a fucking riot.  Unlike Company, which I also enjoyed,  Who Moved My Blackberry? requires zero suspension of disbelief.  While the main character – Martin Lukes – is British, he could be any typical corporate marketing executive trying to get along in today’s world.  Martin isn’t loveable, nor is he a particularly sympathetic character, but he is priceless.

It’s a cloudy day in Paris, but I had a great run down Boulevard Raspail and Boulevard Arago.  Of course, I was trying to find my way to the Seine, but I went the wrong way on Boulevard Raspail.  Oh well, I’ll try again tomorrow.  And – in case you are curious – Mission Impossible 3 (which is most definitely not as good as MI-2) is playing in English here with French subtitles.