Micro Capitalism: Eastern Europe's Computer Future.

Computer entrepreneurs are emerging from the shells of state organizations in Eastern Europe to begin the exhilarating yet chaotic process of building a market economy. The situation is much like early versions of a new piece of software--lots of ideas and functionality but not much coherence or integration. Computer analyst Esther Dyson has traveled throughout Central Europe and the Soviet Union for the past two years observing and recording some of the forces and personalities building the new world of computing there. She introduces us to Gabor Bojar, founder of a Hungarian company that distributes Macintosh computers in Hungary and sells software in the West. We learn the history of ComputerLand's Moscow store and the Soviet émigré who returned to launch it. She explains how Autodesk, the fast-growing U.S. software company, is buying valuable software from its Soviet partner and reselling it in the West. Dyson's visits have focused on the small, thus far disenfranchised entrepreneurs and companies. This is not by accident. In the United States, only one big company successfully entered the personal computer business as a big company-- IBM. The players we now consider prosperous giants grew up in the industry. This will be the case in Eastern Europe as well. Western companies willing to take risks on untried and unproven entrepreneurs, rather than sticking with better known (but complacent) state organizations and institutes, will be winners in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]