How will low-income communities be affected by the waves of social, economic, political, and cultural change that surround the new information technologies? How can we influence the outcome? This action-oriented book identifies the key issues, explores the evidence, and suggests some answers. Avoiding both utopianism and despair, the book presents the voices of technology enthusiasts and skeptics, as well as social activists. The book is organized into three parts. Part I examines the issues in their socio-technical, economic, and historical contexts. Part II--the core of the book--proposes five initiatives for using computers and electronic communications to benefit low-income urban communities: - to provide access to the new technologies in ways that enable low-income people to become active producers rather than passive users;- to use the new technologies to improve the dialogue between public agencies and low-income neighborhoods;- to help low-income youth to exploit the entrepreneurial potential of information technologies;- to develop approaches to education that take advantage of the educational capabilities of the computer;- to promote the community computer: applications of computers and communications technology that foster community development. Part III presents a synthesis of the various topics. Its main questions are, What are the prospects and problems of initiatives to enable the poor to benefit from the new technologies? and What federal, state, and municipal policies would enhance the prospects for success? Contributors Alice Amsden, Jeanne Bamberger, Anne Beamish, Manuel Castells, Joseph Ferreira, Peter Hall, Leo Marx, William J. Mitchell, Mitchel Resnick, Bish Sanyal, Donald A. Schön, Alan and Michelle Shaw, Michael Shiffer, Bruno Tardieu, Sherry Turkle, Julian Wolpert

Marketing is civilized warfare. And as high-tech products become increasingly standardized—practically identical, from the customer's point of view—it is marketing that spells life or death for new devices or entire firms. In a book that is as fascinating as it is pragmatic, William H. Davidow, a legend in Silicon Valley, where he was described as "the driving force behind the micro processor explosion," tells how to fight the marketing battle in the intensely competitive world of high-tech companies—and win. Blunt, pithy, and knowledgeable, Davidow draws on his successful marketing experience at Intel Corporation to create a complete program for marketing victory. He drives home the basics, such as how to go head-on against the competition; how to "plan products, not devices"; how to give products a "soul"; and how to engineer promotions, market internationally, motivate salespeople, and rally distributors. Above all, he demonstrates the critical importance of servicing and supporting customers. Total customer satisfaction, Davidow makes clear, must be every high-tech marketer's ultimate goal. The only comprehensive marketing strategy book by an insider, Marketing High Technology looks behind the scenes at industry-shaking clashes involving Apple and IBM, Visicorp and Lotus, Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor. He recounts his own involvement in Crush, Intel's innovative marketing offensive against Motorola, to demonstrate, step-by-step, how it became an industry prototype for a winning high-tech campaign. Davidow clearly spells out sixteen principles which increase the effectiveness of marketing programs. From examples as diverse as a Rolling Stones concert and a microprocessor chip, he defines a true "product." He analyzes and explains in new ways the strategic importance of distribution as it relates to market sector, pricing, and the pitfalls it entails. He challenges some traditional marketing theory and provides unique and important insights developed from over twenty years in the high-tech field. From an all-encompassing philosophy that great marketing is a crusade requiring total commitment, to a careful study of the cost of attacking a competitor, this book is an essential tool for survival in today's high-risk, fast- changing, and very lucrative high-tech arena.

The Digital Age was expected to usher in an era of clean production, an alternative to smokestack industries and their pollutants. But as environmental journalist Elizabeth Grossman reveals in this penetrating analysis of high tech manufacture and disposal, digital may be sleek, but it's anything but clean. Deep within every electronic device lie toxic materials that make up the bits and bytes, a complex thicket of lead, mercury, cadmium, plastics, and a host of other often harmful ingredients. High Tech Trash is a wake-up call to the importance of the e-waste issue and the health hazards involved. Americans alone own more than two billion pieces of high tech electronics and discard five to seven million tons each year. As a result, electronic waste already makes up more than two-thirds of the heavy metals and 40 percent of the lead found in our landfills. But the problem goes far beyond American shores, most tragically to the cities in China and India where shiploads of discarded electronics arrive daily. There, they are "recycled"-picked apart by hand, exposing thousands of workers and community residents to toxics. As Grossman notes, "This is a story in which we all play a part, whether we know it or not. If you sit at a desk in an office, talk to friends on your cell phone, watch television, listen to music on headphones, are a child in Guangdong, or a native of the Arctic, you are part of this story." The answers lie in changing how we design, manufacture, and dispose of high tech electronics. Europe has led the way in regulating materials used in electronic devices and in e-waste recycling. But in the United States many have yet to recognize the persistent human health and environmental effects of the toxics in high tech devices. If Silent Spring brought national attention to the dangers of DDT and other pesticides, High Tech Trash could do the same for a new generation of technology's products.

A proposal for moving from price-centric to innovation-centric competition policy, reviewing theory and available evidence on economic incentives for innovation. Competition policy and antitrust enforcement have traditionally focused on prices rather than innovation. Economic theory shows the ways that price competition benefits consumers, and courts, antitrust agencies, and economists have developed tools for the quantitative evaluation of price impacts. Antitrust law does not preclude interventions to encourage innovation, but over time the interpretation of the laws has raised obstacles to enforcement policies for innovation. In this book, economist Richard Gilbert proposes a shift from price-centric to innovation-centric competition policy. Antitrust enforcement should be concerned with protecting incentives for innovation and preserving opportunities for dynamic, rather than static, competition. In a high-technology economy, Gilbert argues, innovation matters.

One of the key determinants of success for today’s high-technology companies is product strategy—and this guide continues to be the only book on product strategy written specifically for the 21st century high-tech industry. More than 250 examples from technological leaders including IBM, Compaq, and Apple—plus a new focus on growth strategies and on Internet businesses—define how high-tech companies can use product strategy and product platform strategy for competitiveness, profitability, and growth in the Internet age.

This title provides a thorugh overview of the issues high-tech marketers must address, and provides a balance between conceptual discussions and examples; small and big business; products and services; and consumer and business-to-business marketing contexts.