high stakes, no prisoners: a winner’s tale of greed and glory in the internet wars by charles h. ferguson is the story of vermeer technologies, the company that created that created frontpage and was acquired by microsoft. it’s a very personal account of the story, and it’s a good read. ferguson is quite a character, and his characterizations of various dotcom celebrities and microsoft insiders are entertaining.

the book was written about six years ago, and some of his predictions have fallen short in the meantime. microsoft hasn’t really claimed a huge percentage of the server market, and the frontpage server extensions certainly haven’t done much to drive iis adoption.