From Booklist
Editor Derek Leebaert, author of Technology 2001: The Future of Computing and Communications (1992), contends that standardization, coupled with further sophistication of software technology, is pivotal to the future of computers. Leebaert, who teaches computer technology at Georgetown, has collected the opinions, knowledge, and prophecies of 13 of his peers in academia and the corporate world to provide this wide view of the vast potential software possesses and the multifarious directions it may take. Among the interesting contentions are attorney Jeffrey Cunard's comments about the "shrink wrap" license on the packaging of software products and the future of software law as an entity in itself, akin to, yet separate from, copyright law. Stimulating articles that will be of interest to an audience beyond dedicated computer buffs. Denise Perry Donavin

From Book News, Inc.
Computer and software experts from disciplines such as business, academia, and law address the question of how software can keep pace with computer development, and discuss issues such as software evolution, standards and ownership, work-group collaboration, end- user programming, natural-language and human-intelligence capabilities, and Japan's software crisis. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Continuing the trend-watching of Technology 2001, which discussed the technologies that could well define the computing and communications environment that lies ahead, The Future of Software assembles the observations of leading computer scientists, strategists, and planners in both business and academia, this time tackling software development.

Despite the extraordinary advances during the past few years in computing power, Derek Leebaert and the other contributors see as the biggest challenge for the future the development of software that can fully exploit the the computer's ever-increasing capabilities. Each author addresses the particular aspect of software that is his or her specialty, examining how various developments and applications will transform the way we think about and use comptuters as we enter the next millennium.

The topics include the history and evolution of software, the future of software and how it will change the way we live, software standardization, work group computing, computer supported collaboration, end-user programming, natural language and natural- intelligence capabilities and limitations, the Japanese software industry, software and the law, and the coordination of knowledge.

FROM THE CRITICS

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