Drummond, Michael 1964-

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DRUMMOND, Michael 1964-

PERSONAL: Born 1964; married; wife's name, Alison (a journalist); children: one daughter, one son.

ADDRESSES: Office—San Diego Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0190.

CAREER: Journalist. San Diego Union-Tribune, business writer. Worked for other newspapers, including the Daily Californian and Dayton Daily News.

AWARDS, HONORS: Society of Professional Journalists award, Investigating Reporters and Editors award, Best of the West award.

WRITINGS:

Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft, Crown (New York, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Michael Drummond's Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft is about software designers Eric Engstrom, Craig Eisler, and Alex St. John, or the "Beastie Boys," who developed programming code to run computer games in a Windows 95 environment (DirectX). The project was never fully developed, because at the time, most personal computers lacked the power to implement the product. Engstrom and Eisler then attempted to adapt the concept to Web browsers in an unauthorized project they called Chrome, which was ultimately dismantled by Microsoft management.

Scott Rosenberg wrote in the New York Times Book Review that Drummond "blames Chrome's failure on bureaucratic treachery and the intimidating effect on Microsoft's culture of the federal antitrust suit…. In his eagerness to dress up corporate infighting in the overheated language of video-game combat, he misses his story's invitation to a more substantive debate." Rosenberg pointed out that Microsoft builds its business on its proprietary code, while much of the Internet's foundation relies on shareware and open standards. Rosenberg felt that Renegades of the Empire could have been a vehicle for exploring the conflicting means of developing software, shared or proprietary, and the shaping of the digital world.

Salon.com contributor Thomas Scoville said of the three developers that "their persistently adolescent, antisocial leitmotifs run throughout this book. The renegades' collective borrowed nickname … pretty much betrays it right there … both ethically and demographically. Once, rebellious young men threw rocks at passing cars. Now, it appears, they hijack Fortune 500s." Scoville wrote that his "principal gripe is with the disturbing lack of conscience in the way it [the book] lionizes its subjects' disregard for the rules, authority, prior accomplishment, and fair play. The rush of technology, apparently, leaves little time for life's lessons on the value of being nice to one another."

Library Journal's Lucy T. Heckman called Renegades of the Empire "a fascinating account of the inner workings of Microsoft" and "an important addition to the literature" on that company. Booklist reviewer Brad Hooper described the book as "a very revealing look inside one corner of the computer industry and the personalities that color it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, November 1, 1999, Brad Hooper, review of Renegades of the Empire: How Three SoftwareWarriors Started a Revolution behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft, p. 490.

Library Journal, December, 1999, Lucy T. Heckman, review of Renegades of the Empire, p. 153.

New York Times Book Review, February 13, 2000, Scott Rosenberg, review of Renegades of the Empire, p. 15.

Publishers Weekly, November 15, 1999, review of Renegades of the Empire, p. 52.