Book Review: In Search Of Stupidity
Book: In Search of Stupidity (Over 20 years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters)
Author: Merrill R. Chapman
How do you say you loved a book titled “in search of stupidity” and maintain any sense of self-respect? I decided the answer to that question was including the subtitle in parenthesis.
The book takes a look at the high-tech revolution starting with IBM's own PC product and follows the market through the Internet/ASP busts. I really enjoyed the bits from the 80's and early 90's as the book brought back memories of many products I followed reading the latest copies of PC Magazine for pre-release rumors and first reviews. Like the IBM PC Junior's chicklet keyboard, the Coleco Adam's ability to wipe out it own's tapes if set on the included printer and Apple's recommendation to drop the Apple III from several feet to reseat the memory chips. I remember reading about WordPro and WordPro 2000 being completely incompatible offerings from the same company and offered at the same price point. The book treats the reader to stories about how these situations came to pass and it's absolutely hillarious. It once again proves the point that one man's pain is another man's comedy. Champman is brutal to IBM, but I can't say it's not unwarranted as I've always thought their ineptness made even HP look 'ept'. I had forgotten about Ashton-Tate and Ed Esber's complete alienation of the xBase crowd, but Chapman recalls this with some great details.
I really like the pictures of product and marketing failures he collected. My favorite was definitely the picture of the shrinkwrapped copy of SoftRam for Windows 95. I wonder how many copies of that product were actually sold?
The book is a lot of fun to read, I couldn't put it down and finished it in a day and a half. I'm sure there are points that people could contradict, but Chapman's writing style and position within the industry offers a fun perspective on the past 20+ years. I would say that if you're over 30 and grew up with computers, this book is a must read.