Today, Microsoft commands the high ground of the information superhighway by owning the operating systems and basic applications programs that run on the world's 170 million computers. Beyond the unquestioned genius and vision of Bill Gates, what accounts for Microsofts astounding success?

Drawing on almost two years of on-site observation at Microsoft headquarters, eminent scientists Michael A. Cusumano and Richard W. Selby reveal many of Microsoft's innermost secrets. This inside report, based on forty in-depth interviews by authors who had access to confidential documents and project data, outlines the seven complementary strategies that characterize exactly how Microsoft competes and operates, including the "Brain Trust" of talented employees and exceptional management; "bang for the buck" competitive strategies and clear organizational goals that produce self-critiquing, learning, and improving; a flexible, incremental approach to product development; and a relentless pursuit of future markets.

Cusumano and Selby's masterful analysis successfully uncovers the distinctive way in which Microsoft has combined all of the elements necessary to get to the top of an enormously important industry -- and stay there.

We have only begun to understand the experimental nature of software engineering, the role of empirical studies and measurement within software engineering, and the mechanisms needed to apply them successfully. This volume presents the proceedings of a workshop whose purpose was to gather those members of the software engineering community who support an engineering approach based upon empirical studies to provide an interchange of ideas and paradigms for research. The papers in the volume are grouped into six parts corresponding to the workshop sessions: The experimental paradigm in software engineering; Objectives and context of measurement/experimentation; Procedures and mechanisms for measurement/experimentation; Measurement-based modeling; packaging for reuse/reuse of models; and technology transfer, teaching and training. Each part opens with a keynote paper and ends with a discussion summary. The workshop served as an important event in continuing to strengthen empirical software engineering as a major subdiscipline ofsoftware engineering. The deep interactions and important accomplishments from the meeting documented in these proceedings have helped identify key issues in moving software engineering as a whole towards a true engineering discipline.