Off topic?

My last post is not intended to be typical of this blog.  I pride myself on technical knowledge and programming skill, not business acumen, but I have worked at a bunch of different companies and am interested in the industry.  Recently I've been working on Xaml, but in my spare time (in addition to teaching myself Ruby) I've been reading some business history and strategy books.  It's a little dated, but I have to recommend David Halberstam's "The Reckoning" for insight into how big corporations work.  The book is about the economic confrontation between Japan and the U.S. during the 1980s, told by comparing and contrasting Ford and Nissan.  The growth of these two companies inspired me to think about where Microsoft is in its history.

Next up is Louis Gerstner's "Who Says Elephants can't Dance" about his experiences turning around IBM in the early 90s.