W.E. Pete Peterson

I got this book as a free download, and found it much more interesting that I expected.

If you used PCs in the late 1980s or early 1990s you'll remember WordPerfect as the de facto word processing standard. This book tells the story of the rise and fall of WordPerfect corporation from the perspective of W.E. "Pete" Peterson who rose from a junior management role to VP of sales before being fired by the shareholders.

From a technology point of view, wordperfect overtook wordstar as the standard word processor in the late 1980s, and was then overtaken itself by microsoft word in the 1990s. There's also the challenges of building a rapidly growing company, and the competition between the various companies.

Then there's the management style and personality issues. This book was told from Pete Peterson's point of view, but there are a few hints that he wasn't the easiest person to work with.

All in all an enjoyable and interesting book.… (mehr)