Gordon Crovitz, who is resonsible for Dow, Jones electronic publishing, lists his top five books on the topic of what the Internet means for business.

One of the insights (from Unleashing the Killer App):

[T]he trend to huge, vertically integrated conglomerates. . . . [was due to] "Transaction costs" . . .: High information costs, search costs and bargaining costs made keeping it all in the company cheaper than going outside. The Internet has flattened these costs. Outsourcing and offshoring are the latest result, with wired people around the world able to handle just about everything that doesn't play to a company's competitive advantage.