The third edition of Information Systems, A Management Perspective by Steven Alter continues the streamlining that began in the second edition. It is now over 200 pages shorter than most other thorough information systems texts. This was accomplished by integrating its outline and content around a unique approach business professionals can use for understanding and analyzing IT-enabled systems. This web page is an integral part of the product offering, and supplements the text's many cases and examples with additional cases, examples, up-to-date news, and online exercises. The online exercises range from spreadsheet and database examples to questions about topics such as the Internet and electronic commerce that can be explored most conveniently through links to other web pages.

If you are just finding out about this book, please take a moment to see how this text is unique, and to look at the table of contents. Also feel free to look at a new 1999 case about some of the problems that can occur when an ecommerce transaction goes awry. The case is available for use in any information system course. It is called Shopping.com: When e-commerce isn't a bargain.

To see how this book is designed to help business professionals understand systems in their organizations, feel free to look at an overview of the work-centered analysis method, a summary of common confusions it helps avoid, comparison with other frameworks. In addition, you can look at "A General, Yet Useful Theory of Information Systems," a 1999 article Steven Alter published in the Communications of the Association of Information Systems. Among other things, this article explains that many of the most common "system success factors" often associated with information systems are equally applicable to the work systems they support.

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