The first edition of this book appeared in the Federal Republic of Gennany in 1984. and in English translation as "Computer: A Challenge for Business Administration" in 1985. This book. which is a translation of the fourth Gennan edition. has been comprehensively revised. As a result both the character and the expected audience of the book have changed. which is reflected in the alteration to the title. This book adresses itself to issues arising from the research areas of both infonnation systems and computer science. Computer science departments are primarily concerned with the development of EDP techniques. and the business economics aspects remain largely Ignored. The emphasis in infonnation systems departments is placed on the investigation of the business economic impact of the use of already existing systems. This strongly empirical approach is accompanied by a disinclination to consider actual system deSign: this is considered the responsibility of the software houses. This partitioning. however. leaves untapped the considerable potential which could be realized by an interdisciplinary approach from computer science and business economics. An isolated approach neglects both the effects that business economics can have on the implementation of EDP techniques. and the structural impact of EDP on business economics.