Classic textbook style. Lots of charts and good information. Moore's writing style is basic academic but available nevertheless. If you do marketing in a fast-growing busines or emerging market, this is an essential part of your toolkit. The paper and printing are pocket paperback quality.

Granted I haven't yet read the predecessor to this book, Crossing the Chasm, but this is the best business book I have read focusing on the external aspects of business. Most business books focus internally - what you and/or your company needs to do. This book takes the approach that what one does has a dependency on what's going on with the market.

The market, as defined in Crossing the Chasm, and repeated here, is divided into five sections/phases - Innovators (techies), Early Adopters (visionaries), Early Majority (pragmatists), Late Majority (conservatives), and Laggards (skeptics). Each of these groups has it's own needs that must be addressed. The predecessor deals with the "chasm" between the Early Adopters and the Early Majority. This book focuses on the tornado that occurs when a company/product gains traction with the Early Majority.

This book also borrows the concepts of "value disciplines" from "The Discipline of Market Leaders" and applies it to the various sections. There are three, somewhat mutually exclusive, disciplines - product leadership, operational excellence, and customer intimacy. It shows how initially the keys to success are focusing on product leadership and customer intimacy. Then, in the tornado, product leadership and operational excellence are key. Then, on main street, operational excellence and customer intimacy are critical.

The big challenge for people and for companies is, as with a manual transmission, shifting gears. This book does a fantastic job of explaining the changes needed at the different times, as well as how to determine when one reaches those times.

Inside the Tornado is very insightful and descriptive of the technology life cycle and the experiences of a company throughout each phase. Each phase has its own dynamic of what is required of the product for success, the competition involved, roles as they relate to competition and positioning, and the leadership required throughout. Even though Inside the Tornado was written more than ten years ago, the overarching principles still apply as new technologies are created, adopted, and later replaced with a new paradigm to disrupt the market and start the cycle over again.

This is probably the best and the most complete of the 3 books written by Geoffrey A. Moore. It is also one of the best business books that I have read in the past 5 years (I read a lot) . This is one of the few books that clearly states how that strategies that companies follow while crossing the Chasm differ from those while they are in the tornado or a mass adoption. It takes an indepth look at the general principles that an entrepreneurial venture should focus at during the inception stage including strategies for product design and deciding which verticals to target. It also describes how start up companies made their first sale and how they moved on from one vertical to another. And then how the very same companies adopted their products when the tornado arrived. In essence, it tells why and how companies like Oracle and Lotus could hold their ground and live under the radar in the presence of bigger rivals and how they outdid them.

This book is an exceptional resource for any Entrepreneur and business development manager or someone starting a new venture. I would highly recommend this book if you are an investment manager and invest in growth companies for this book gives you a yardstick to measure the progress of start ups and new ventures.

This is probably the best and the most complete of the 3 books written by Geoffrey A. Moore. It is also one of the best business books that I have read in the past 5 years (I read a lot) . This is one of the few books that clearly states how that strategies that companies follow while crossing the Chasm differ from those while they are in the tornado or a mass adoption. It takes an indepth look at the general principles that an entrepreneurial venture should focus at during the inception stage including strategies for product design and deciding which verticals to target. It also describes how start up companies made their first sale and how they moved on from one vertical to another. And then how the very same companies adopted their products when the tornado arrived. In essence, it tells why and how companies like Oracle and Lotus could hold their ground and live under the radar in the presence of bigger rivals and how they outdid them.

This book is an exceptional resource for any Entrepreneur and business development manager or someone starting a new venture. I would highly recommend this book if you are an investment manager and invest in growth companies for this book gives you a yardstick to measure the progress of start ups and new ventures.

Thankfully, this is NOT littered with platitudes and meaningless anaologies, the hallmarks of 99% of the latest-and-greatest business books. Especially since it was written in 1999, Moore's is an incredibly insightful and prophetic book on strategy for the high-tech industry. He was predicting cutting edge changes then that are coming into reality today in 2005. The book is much more descriptive than prescriptive though, and is best used as a tool to instigate discussions about corporate strategy, rather than as a checklist for strategic implementation.

I help run an online software development company and although it isn't exactly "high tech" I still found the vast majority of it very helpful and the rest of it fascinating. Market shifts are demanding broadband wireless Internet everywhere--free. Companies are shifting towards web-basing software applications. All very relevant to my business.

The book is well written, an easy and moderately fast read, and very accessible by anyone who is technology-savvy enough to at least hold an email address. Yes, buy it. Buy the paperback and save money.

Short Synopsis: In the infancy of a market, products need to be highly tailored to meet the psychological and technical needs of leading edge techno-geeks; nothing new here. When a company wants to take that product and make it marketable to the middle majority--where the biggest money sits--it requires a commitment to discipline and shift its strategy in order to do so. The emphasis shifts intially to identifying a single niche segment and creating a comprehensive, tailored product, that meets all of their needs--create the "whole product" by using partners and 3rd party services to patchwork the thing together. Then, stop tweaking the product. If that works, pick related niches and go after them the same way, creating the "whole product" for each of them. Once people at large are comfortable enough to make the paradigm shift for that market (this all deals with new, high-tech changes) and start doing so en masse, the strategy must completely shift again to a ship-first / fix-the-product-later mentality in a mad, market share scramble. At this phase, you are "In the Tornado." Lots of examples of successful and abysmal strategies used by high tech companies whose names are familiar to everyone, at each stage mentioned above.

I can't tell you how many times I have read this book and though it is ten years old, the insights still ring true and offer insights into how the technology markets continue to evolve.
If you'd read this ten years ago you would have had a blueprint for the last tech bubble and would probably be reading this review with your toes in tropical sand.

Beyond the previous Chasm book, there's a great deal of additional depth in how to make the transition with your business to get your products out to a wider range of people. He also introduced the idea of companies that effectively "live" in one part of the adoption phase or another, not dominating it, but rather living off the share that the market implicitly either wants to give to another competitor to keep a diverse environment or because they're the low-cost clone alternative.

Like another reviewer, I found the gorilla / chimp / monkey metaphor a bit much, though primarily because the "gorilla company" metaphor is used in a slightly different way in the real world. My biggest concern was with the people issues; there's a lot of discussion around how to transition your company from one stage to another and how that will affect the various roles, rewards the people in those roles should expect, and even the type of work those people should be doing. I don't think -- especially for companies as people-based as technology companies -- he spends enough time talking about how you handle those issues, set expectations, and actually lead your company through these sorts of changes. Academically, I could see how he was saying to transform the company over time. Practically, though, I couldn't see how some of his messages could be delivered well. Especially to the engineers working on products.

This was a groundbreaking book for many readers, who grew up in the pre-Silicon Valley boom days. How could Intel, Microsoft and other high-tech giants seize so much revenue, so fast? What were their marketing secrets and how can you apply them if you are in a new technology business? These are good questions and the description of how the successful companies stayed ahead of their competitors is educational. The rules look simple:
1. Just ship
2. Expand your distribution channels (and leave none unprotected)
3. Drive to the next lowest price point.

To me, this is more like staying ahead of the wave in surfing rather than riding a tornado, but whatever the metaphor, these are accurate descriptions of how high growth companies kept their products rolling and revenues coming in during high-demand times.

But do any of these rules apply to staying ahead of the competition during the lean times? Where have the tornados dropped everyone during the inevitable slowdown after a long, strong period of growth? Look at HP--who drove these rules to high success with the laser and deskjets and unbeknownst to many, took the lead in the home PC market too before the recession hit. Now, when spending on technology has been frozen by corporations seeking to hold costs down during the downturn, how do any of the marketing rules set out by Moore apply?

Well, the author points out that one has to be alert to when a new tornado is coming, though that is difficult. Now, when companies are slowing down is when technology developments in the skunk works are allowed to flourish; R&D has more time to perfect new technologies when there is little pressure to get out in a heated marketplace. Sooner or later, then next tornado is coming and the companies that are ready with strategic partnerships, competitive advantage, proper "bowling pin" positioning of product will profit. Right now may be the Year of the Monkey ("monkeys" compete on low price and low overhead) but the fundamentals have not changed for the next wave of a technology boom.

I like this book for looking at the fundamentals of companies who will be up and coming in the next recovery period, and for setting up marketing strategies for new products we are developing in house at our firm. Who has the best in-house R&D? What are the coming new technologies? Who's positioned to profit--look at the rules put forth in "Inside the Tornado" and see if you can make any predictions.

Recommended reading.

`Crossing the Chasm' and `Inside the Tornado' explain high-tech marketing strategies and product/technology life cycle. In the 90s, some of the most successful high-tech companies could be distinguished by their marketing strategies. Standard approach to marketing might be fine for other industries, but it has less chance of succeeding in high-tech industry. `Crossing the Chasm' refers to product's acceptance by mass market. Typical product adaptation cycle would go through various phases that include: innovators (very narrow market), early adopters, (much larger than innovators, but still nothing major), early majority (this is where you want your product to get), late majority (still huge market), and laggards. Now, in high-tech world, there is a chasm between early adopters and early majority. It takes different approach to cross that chasm and get accepted by early majority.
Once you are on the other side of the chasm, be prepare for the `tornado' phase. Your product/technology will take off with enormous power driven by huge market. You don't want to be at the point where market demand surpasses your supply. At this point your company can grow at hyper growth rate and gigantic revenues can be generated. We have seen this before so many times and some of the examples (Dell, MS, Oracle, Apple, etc...) are known to everybody.

Notwithstanding its well-written words, the dot-bomb bubble has clearly indicated high-technology may not quite be the donkey's braying.

True, the bubble's bursting may not be due to marketing's strategies. The best marketing strategy cannot force someone into purchasing a product.

Mike L.'s Guerrila PR: Wired also seeks to provide various techniques and tips for how to do promotions using the Internet, but does not limit itself to technology.

Moore's book is not without value, but now may not be the time to extol the virtues of the high-tech industry.

Ever wonder why so many innovative products never have the commercial success that the innovation deserves? "Inside the Tornado" is an invaluable resource for high tech marketing. The basic philosophy behind the book is for high tech marketers to master the use product niches and specialization in order to transcend high tech products forward to mass-market acceptance by dissecting the product adoption lifecycle. A great read for marketers and techies interested in marketing their own innovations.

Crossing the Chasm (1991) and Inside the Tornado (1995) should be read in combination. Having just re-read both, I consider them even more valuable now than when they were first published. Chasm "is unabashedly about and for marketing within high-tech enterprises." It was written for the entire high tech community "to open up the marketing decision making during this [crossing] period so that everyone on the management team can participate in the marketing process." In Chasm, Moore isolates and then corrects what he describes as a "fundamental flaw in the prevailing high-tech marketing model": the notion that rapid mainstream growth could follow continuously on the heels of early market success.

In his subsequent book, Inside the Tornado, Moore's use of the "tornado" metaphor correctly suggests that turbulence of unprecedented magnitude has occurred within the global marketplace which the WWW and the Internet have created. Moreover, such turbulence is certain to intensify. Which companies will survive? Why? I have only one (minor) quarrel with the way these two books have been promoted. True, they provide great insights into marketing within the high technology industry. However, in my opinion, all e-commerce (especially B2B and, even more importantly, B2B2C) will be centrally involved in that industry. Moreover, the marketing strategies suggested are relevant to virtually (no pun intended) any organization -- regardless of size or nature -- which seeks to create or increase demand for what it sells...whatever that may be. I consider both books "must reading." Those who share my high regard for one or both are strongly urged to read Moore's more recent business classic, Living on the Fault Line.

Inside the Tornado is the 1995 sequel to the 1991 book, Crossing the Chasm. Inside the Tornado repeats the arguments of Crossing the Chasm, and adds three new stages of how to manage a business during the lifecycle of a technology. While Crossing the Chasm was primarily about marketing with some strategy emphasis, this book reverses the emphasis. I recommend the 1999 paperback version because it contains a new introduction that serves better as a helpful afterword to the book, as Mr. Moore suggests, in updating it for the Internet.

In Crossing the Chasm, Mr. Moore successfully argues that new technologies first attract customers who love technology, and will try anything. If you succeed with that group, you will next attract visionary customers who will want to use the technology to steal a march on their competitors. After that comes the chasm, getting into broad acceptance. Many technologies never make it. The method to cross is described in Inside the Tornade as the bowling alley. You pick a few key segments that may reflect the needs of other segments. By providing custom solutions for these segments, you create a ricochet effect into striking good solutions for other niches. The analogy is to the way that after the bowling ball first hits the one and three pins (for right handers) and then continues on to take out the five pin, those three pins hit the pins behind them, which in turn go backward to take out the pins in the final row, until you have a strike.

The tornado is the period of mass market acceptance. This is when there is a lot of demand as everyone who decides about infrastructure adopts the new standard simultaneously. You have to standardize, get your costs down, and ship at low prices. Your strategy is just the opposite of the bowling alley period. The metaphor here is to the tornado in the Wizard of Oz that sweeps Dorothy, Toto, and her house from Kansas to Oz.

Then comes Main Street, when the market demand is now filled and you are looking at "aftermarket development, when the base infrastructure has been deployed and the goal now is to flesh out its potential." You once again focus on segments, and create custom solutions.

The final period is End of Life, when "wholly new paradigms come to market and supplant the leaders who themselves had only just arrived." In essence, you start a new technology cycle. The best companies (like Intel) will do this to themselves.

The book also describes the importance of becoming the gorilla who will have about 50 percent market share and earn 75-80 percent of industry profits as a result of dominating the tornado period. Gorillas are made during the tornado. Oracle is described as an example.

During the bowling alley your company needs to be very good at product leadership and customer intimacy, during the tornado you need to shift to product leadership combined with operational excellence, and in Main Street the focus is on operational excellence and customer intimacy. This thinking will remind you of the book, The Discipline of Market Leaders, and the work of Dr. Adizes. Most companies will not be agile enough to make these transitions. Examples abound in the book. Apple's example will hit home with you, I'm sure.

As to the Internet, things are different. In the original book, the Internet is only mentioned three times. In the introduction here, Mr. Moore says that the "Internet market tornado, however, is so powerful that it has sucked all four models into its vortex." Companies are succeeding simultaneously in different parts of the Internet space at the same time with each of the strategies outlined here.

In the future, I think technologies will evolve more like the Internet has. During these evolutions, I think that business model discontinuities will be more important than technology discontinuities. While you can only put technology discontinuities in during parts of the cycle (never during the tornado), business model shifts can occur at any stage. Also, it is easier to shift business models than to shift technologies. Business model shifts affect your own operations more than customers, while technologies have a large impact on customers. My current work is focused on how the two need to interact with one another, which is not addressed here.

After you have read this excellent book, I suggest that you consider the organizational planning issues required to create such a multi-faceted effectiveness. For example, you may find it easier to have two organizations. One will focus on creating custom solutions, while another focuses on mass market solutions. In that way, you can hedge your bets with predicting the timing of each phase.

May you always focus your attention on the most important activities required by the markets you serve!