This isn't a good book. It goes over the same tired old ground as so many others, then fails for detail on anything new and interesting. We already know DOM (and could learn most of it in 5 minutes). XSLT still needs Michael Kay to really get to grips with it. The interesting and new part, web services, is only covered by this book at the "buzzword checklist" level. You'd be better off reading white papers on a few web sites instead.

IBM are pretty clued up these days. They had a rocky patch, but they're now on their way out. They offer services these days; they're good at it, they're good team players on all manner of community-based projects (many are OpenSourced) and they're making good profits.

They're not the market share they were, they're not as influential as they were, but they're heading slowly upwards. Rather a contrast to DEC (who?), Compaq, and (It saddens me to say it) HP.