- Apr 19, 2006
- Books
- book review
I finished reading
Eric Sink's new book this weekend, "
Eric Sink on the Business of Software". I've been enjoying Eric's weblog for a long time so I figured I'd splurge on this book as I'm a book person at heart.
This
book is actually a printing of 27 articles (or blog posts) from his web
site, many of which were released on MSDN. I believe there might be a
few small changes, but nothing major. I had read many of these
articles previously and I knew what to expect going into the book. If
I had been expecting new work, I would have left very disappointed.
Eric
has organized the book into 4 sections, Entrepreneurship, People,
Marketing and Sales. Each of the articles is now a chapter and he has
written an introduction for each one, similar to what
Joel Spolsky did in his
Joel on Software book. Eric's book does flow together very well considering each article was written without the book in mind.
Eric's
focus is on the small software shop or "Micro ISV" has he refers to
them. Eric has lots of experiences in the software business and is a
great communicator of his ideas. He shares his insights in a very
personable, humorous tone which makes for easy reading.
Having
had some experience in my own small businesses, a lot of his advice
rings true. Some of his ideas didn't really apply, some I'm a bit
skeptical of, and some I really wished I had thought of.
The
book is recommended reading if you have interest in starting a "Micro
ISV" or just like to dream about it. I will readily admit, the weblog
archives will give you basically the same content, but you won’t be
able to enjoy them as comfortably as a book.