High Stakes, No Prisoners by Charles Ferguson

In High Stakes, No Prisoners , Charles Ferguson describes in detail his experiences as founder of Vermeer, the company that developed FrontPage, software that makes it easy to design Web pages and sites, which Microsoft made popular after buying the company. His account is candid and personal, providing useful insights into dealing with venture capital companies and problems that Internet startup companies, and particularly software companies, are likely to encounter. Along the way, he brutalizes the decisions that led to the fall of Netscape, and repeatedly criticizes the predatory business tactics of Microsoft.

I was deeply involved in Internet business during the era described, working as an Internet evangelist for Digital Equipment, then Compaq 1993-1998. I know some of the people mentioned along the way, and remember the industry events/developments described. But much of what I read here bears little resemblance to my memories. For me that was a plus for this book, helping me to take another look at those events from a different perspective. But, in general, readers should beware -- the author's viewpoint is very personal, emotional and idiosyncratic. That's the book's greatest strength as well as its weakness. Don't expect dispassionate history or unbiased business analysis. Do expect an entertaining inside look at board-room-level wheeling and dealing in the early days of business on the Internet.

Sometimes the author seems more interested in settling old scores than seeking truth. As part of the purchase agreement, Microsoft made Ferguson agree to say absolutely nothing to anybody about Microsoft for a couple years. He used that time to write this book, and published it after the gag order expired. While these pages deal with high tech business, there's personal emotion in every page, sometimes descending to mere gossip, rather then providing details about decisions and business techniques that you could adapt to your own business. But that approach helps make this book very readable, entertaining, dynamic.

On the other hand, He does an exceptionally good job of explaining to a non-technical audience the importance of architecture in software design, and the long-term consequences (illustrated by the case of Netscape) of failing to structure your company and your design efforts that way.

Along the way, Ferguson makes himself sound like a prophet for foreseeing trends that seemed obvious to many others in the industry at the time, but that, admittedly, seemed outrageously revolutionary and impossible to outsiders. But he is also brutally honest about his own failures. Apparently, he was extremely lucky to sell Vermeer to Microsoft when he did and for a very good price. At that time, Vermeer had generated trivial revenue, only selling about 200 copies of FrontPage. While they got lots of attention in the press and good visibility at trade shows, they apparently had mispriced the product and the end-user marketing effort was going nowhere.

Considering that outcome, you might think that one of the major lessons learned should have been the importance of marketing strategy to the business success of an Internet startup. But no -- he sees his mistakes more in terms of personalities, such as hiring the wrong person to run the company. His bias is still strongly in favor of making business decisions based on technology, and putting little emphasis on marketing and management.

He makes a few sneering references to the Internet Assistant -- Microsoft's first attempt at an easy-to-use Web authoring tool, which was later incorporated into Word for Office 98. Actually, that's an excellent, very efficient, very easy-to-use solution, which I've used for creating Web pages since 1995.

He also shows no awareness of the main weakness of FrontPage -- that it focuses narrowly on page design, with no appreciation for the marketing value of Web content, no built-in understanding of the search-engine-related consequences of page design decisions. Hence users often create sites and pages that search engines can't index or index poorly, and hence they wind up having to spend more in marketing and advertising to attract traffic. (Cf. my articles on this subject at www.samizdat.com/report.html and www.samizdat.com/belongs.html).

His analysis of the Internet software industry feels limited and flawed. It needs to be balanced by an appreciation for open software development efforts like Apache and Linux. (See the excellent book on that subject The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond, and my review of it at www.samizdat.com/bazaar.html). In Web server software, not Netscape, not Microsoft, but Apache appears to be the clear winner -- with no advertising, no fanfare.

If you are looking for venture capital for an Internet startup, this book is a "must-read." Ferguson's experience and advice might prove very useful. He names names (both individuals and companies) and blasts away with brutal, very personal candor. But you need to keep in mind that venture capital procedures and players change very quickly. In Internet terms Ferguson's 1994-96 experience is ancient history, valuable mainly as background.

This is another "Internet entrepreneur as modern-day hero" book. It emphasizes every thought and gesture and negotiating ploy of the folks at the top -- like the old-style history books that focused on the intrigues of royal families and the speeches of generals. It gives no clue of what happened in the trenches, what mattered to the folks who were doing the day-to-day design and marketing work or to the folks who needed and used software products of this kind.

Conclusion -- you have to read it; you'll enjoy reading it; but you'll wind up with an empty feeling in your gut and a bitter aftertaste in your mouth.

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