Found an interesting book review at Computerworld, New Zealand, In Search of Stupidity: Over 20 years of high-tech marketing disasters by Merril Chapman.

Qoute from the review:

In 1982, In Search of Excellence, a book profiling a dozen or so successful (at the time) American companies, hit the book shelves. It's taken 20 years, but Merrill Chapman, a former programmer and IT salesman, took inspiration from In Search of Excellence to write its antithesis for the world of IT. The book draws on Chapman's dual technical and sales background and looks at a dozen or so companies where miscued marketing or conflicts between technical staff, sales/marketing and management lost them serious money and market share.

Most of the companies he profiles are around today, examples being IBM and Novell, but IBM's PC Junior and OS/2 have the heat turned on them. As does Novell's 1993 decision to rename NetWare 4.11 intraNetWare, thus causing customers to think it had canned the NetWare line. This is cited as an example of the company's "continuing inability to execute product marketing fundamentals". The accommodation and food at "the inn", the only accommodation for customers visiting Novell's Provo, Utah headquarters, also attract flak from Chapman, who claims one customer vowed to switch from NetWare to NT after getting indigestion while staying there.

Those who came on the scene later will be amused and shocked at some of the off-beam and wacky marketing plans he dissects, such as IBM's 1995 decision to rebrand OS/2 as Warp and give it a Star Trek theme. Trouble was, Paramount Pictures, owners of the Star Trek trademarks, forbade IBM from associating Warp with Star Trek, thus ensuring the market read Warp to mean "twisted" or "bent".

Source: ComputerWorld.nz

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