Chapter 6

, “Three Software Stories,” businessmen tell how they coexisted—or didn’t—with their software. One of them is the New York real estate executive mentioned earlier. He saved his new employer $200,000 a year by boning up on software and using micros rather than expensive time and an outside company’s mainframe. A Maryland construction executive did well, too. He thinks his software knowledge helped him snare a new job as a company president with one-third interest in the firm. Like the New Yorker, he successfully concentrated on micros as they related to his job. Another man, an accountant good at his work but uneasy around computers, offers some observations on the failings of existing software and his difficulties finding the right program.

Graphics will be one of the hotter software topics over the next few years, now that cheap computers can do more visual tricks. And in