The Gorilla Game: Picking Winners in High Technology

Finding the next Microsoft has been the Holy Grail for many investors. However, anyone who has dabbled in technology stocks can't help but be dismayed at their extreme volatility--it's not unusual for tech stocks to gain or lose 10 to 20 percent in a single day. So how can you win in this market and find the next Cisco, Intel, or Oracle? The key to winning, says bestselling author Geoffrey Moore, is to play the "gorilla game."

Moore's previous two books, Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado, are the bibles for many marketing professionals and product managers. In these books, Moore describes the life cycle common to the successful adoption of technology products and pinpoints moments in the cycle, for example, "the chasm," the "bowling alley," and the "tornado," where products can either flourish or fade away. In The Gorilla Game, Moore takes these concepts, with the help of coauthors Paul Johnson and Tom Kippola, and applies them to the task of finding gorilla stocks--ones that dominate their market niches. The book looks at how the market values technology stocks and provides case studies of markets where gorillas have been born. Moore and his coauthors put their ideas to the test in the final chapter and pick a portfolio of stocks that they believe have the potential to become winners in the gorilla game. The result is a highly perceptive investment guide that anyone who's a fan of Moore's earlier work will find exciting and profitable. This revised edition, published a year and a half after the first, includes a new chapter on valuing Internet stocks. --Harry C. Edwards