Software Rules: How the Next Generation of Enterprise Applications Will Increase Strategic Effective

Software has emerged as the most important industry on earth. Without software, armies cannot fight, bankers bank, CEOs direct, doctors operate, engineers build, financiers invest, governments tax. True, we have engineered our dependence on software, but we have done so willingly. Now software is necessary: for groceries to reach supermarkets, for benefits checks to reach veterans, for social-security checks to reach the elderly. Software keeps our cars and trains running and our planes flying, and it makes them safe. It keeps electricity flowing through the power grid - and it consumes its fair share. It keeps our water running - and the Internet. But at present, the software industry is at the same stage the auto industry was before Henry Ford revolutionized car manufacturing with the successful implementation of the assembly line, with its total integration of the industrial process. In Software Rules, Oracle Senior Executive Mark Barrenchea lays out his vision for how total integration of software functions - E-Business Suites - will totally transform the business landscape and offer companies in every industry the keys to increased productivity, lower costs, successful globa