With Acorn moving into the business area, the time is ripe to look at such a book.

It's logically structured in four parts related to a sequence of five overlapping topics - understanding, applying, acquiring, managing and planning.

I read the book from the view of a businessman new to computers and found the style to be about right for the target reader - not condescending or too simple, but gradually building up the technical content. There are self-check questions to ensure you understand as you go along.

The first chapters are good introductions to hardware and software respectively, and Chapter 3 is an excellent guide to simple business systems. The important business applications of accounts systems, databases and wordprocessing are informatively explained, followed by a chapter dealing with other types of software.

The more practical topics of how to obtain software and hardware are covered, including much good advice. I wasn't so happy with a chapter introducing programming. It's difficult to do this in only 18 pages, but I would have liked to see more stress on structured programming. This section ends with information on application software looking more at systems design.

Part 4 deals with the problems of introducing computers into an organisation and is good sensible stuff. The final chapter takes a short look at the future.

A useful list of sources further information, some suggestions for further reading, the excellent glossary and an index round off the book.

Excellent value at £2.95, this is a well written and relevant introduction to computers in business.