Author:  C.P Gupta and K. K. Goyal
Publisher: Mercury Learning
Pages: 250
ISBN:978-1683925866
Print:1683925866
Kindle: B08CVSHKG3
Audience: General
Rating: 3
Reviewer: Kay Ewbank

This book is an introduction to the basics of what a computer is, what software is, and what management information systems do. The rating is for the target audience of people who don't know what's behind the black box. This wouldn't be a book of any interest to developers.

The book opens with an introduction to the concepts of computers. It made me feel rather nostalgic, because when was the last time you came across concepts such as block diagrams of a computer in terms of the arithmetic logic unit and central processing unit, or different storage devices starting with magnetic tape? On the other hand, there's a whole generation of computer users who haven't any idea what's happening under the covers, who would benefit from a basic knowledge. 

Chapter 2 gives an introduction to different types of software - assembler, interpreter, compiler, operating systems, and graphical user interfaces. Again, it's interesting how traditional this all sounds.

Microsoft Office gets a chapter to itself next, with sections on working with Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access. The descriptions seem to be mainly written for Office 2013. The section on Access starts off with an introduction to the idea of data files and records, databases and database management systems before moving on to the very basics of creating a table and primary key in Access.

A chapter on management information systems comes next. This discusses types of information systems for management and operational support, decision making, and has a short section on artificial intelligence in business.

The book ends with a chapter on the application of cross-functional management information systems that introduces enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems.

Overall, I had mixed feelings about this book. It had echoes of what they used to teach in the introductory lectures for computer science, but obviously only the very basics. However, I can imagine a non-techie who wants to know a little bit more about what's under the hood of a computer finding it interesting.

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