Are you a casualty of the Dot Com Explosion?

Is there a permanent dent in the bathroom wall where you bang your head after listening to management briefings?

Is Dilbert like a drug for you because it seems like it's all about your life?

If you're suffering from Post Technology Stress Syndrome and you need to know that somebody else has been there and understands ... we got your fix right here!

The great technology publisher APress has taken a flyer on a new book that's not really a technology book, but is a great read for anybody who lived through the incredible events of the computer revolution! It should also be a lesson for anybody who didn't.

Don't be stupid! Read this book!

I listened to clueless management drone on about how their multi-million dollar commitment to OS/2 was going to propel the company to new heights as they simultaneously let promising internal projects wither and die from lack of attention and resources.

I pleaded with management to invest just a little bit in the new "Internet" technology and was told to go back to my cubicle because it would never work.

I watched as accountants and marketing types got PC's while I/T was told that all the real computing happened on mainframes and, "No! We couldn't have one!"

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

It took me twice my normal time to read this book. It's not that it's hard to read. In fact, the writing style is light, breezy, and conversational. It's just that I just had to stop reading and take a brisk walk constantly to keep from blowing a gasket.

If you were there like I was, you'll grip the pages reading new details about how IBM nursed, protected and sheltered all their worst decisions such as the abortive TopView O/S and the PC Junior. You'll cringe as ego driven, but brain dead executives controlling yesterday's rich and powerful technology giants ram company after company right into the sewer pipes. I knew the general outlines of the stories already because I lived through them, but Merrill Chapman's command of the details that were hidden at the time made it all come alive for me again.

All of you who are thinking, "Hah! Ancient history! Doesn't apply to me!" It DOES apply to you. As I read about how MicroPro positioned two of their own market leading products to compete against each other so they could flog themselves to death, I thought about MicroSoft (funny how the names seem to repeat too) now has VB 6 (still enshrined in the latest version of Office and still beloved of the majority of VB programmers) and VB .NET are currently locked in battle over the hearts and minds of developers everywhere.

Can't happen again? Maybe ... maybe not. IBM had a more commanding market share for a longer time than Microsoft. We thought IBM was invincible at the time. One thing is sure. Since the first technologists introduced new, rounder stones in ClayPot 2.0 to count sheep faster and more error free, we've been making the same mistakes over and over and (Arghhhh!!! ... Make it stop! Make it stop!) over again.

Want to be condemned to repeat this history? Ignore this book. It's a stupid book anyway.