CMP Converts Windows Magazine to an Online-Only Information Source, Reflecting the Changing Information Needs of Desktop Market

PRNewswire
MANHASSET, N.Y.
Jun 25, 1999

CMP Media Inc. announced today that it will cease publication of WINDOWS MAGAZINE's print edition with the title's August 1999 issue, enabling the company's Business Technology Group to expand its focus on media solutions for buyers at companies of all sizes that are driving the growing $488 billion business technology market*.

WINDOWS MAGAZINE served the consolidating print desktop market, which has seen ad pages decline 23% in the first five months of this year, as compared to the same period last year. Vendors focus their marketing efforts on reaching companies of every size in the IS, networking, and business markets, while communicating with the broad desktop market online.

Publishing Director Pam Watkins attributed the print desktop market's decline to a change in buyers' information needs: "As the technology market has shifted from the desktop to server-centric computing, the information needs of technology buyers have changed. Companies are now buying technology to drive revenue and deliver solutions for their customers through the Internet, and through integrated, networked communications and information systems," she said. "This gives vendors like Microsoft, Dell, Gateway, and Micron the opportunity to build relationships with high-demographic IS and networking buyers, while increasingly serving the needs of individual product buyers online."

CMP will continue to produce winmag.com, an extremely popular Website that offers information, utilities and downloads to help technology buyers maximize their investments in Windows applications. The site delivers more than six million page views a month and traffic is growing. Earlier this year, CMP converted Byte Magazine into an online-only media product. Traffic to Byte.com has since increased by more than 80%.

Advertisers such as ViewSonic Corporation's Executive Vice President Peter Weedfald applaud the move. "The Internet has dramatically changed the media diet of buyers of Windows technology. At ViewSonic, we believe as the world wide web allows for access to information anytime anywhere, the demand for displays will dramatically increase. Our customers need the information such as the Windows features and product coverage found in WINDOWS MAGAZINE on an instant, point and click basis."

CMP was recently acquired by Miller Freeman, Inc., the business-to-business media company, which publishes titles in the voice/data, Web design, and software development markets, among others. "The conversion of WINDOWS MAGAZINE is part of a process that will leverage the companies' combined assets to be the premier information provider to the markets that matter -- in print, online, and face to face," said Tony Uphoff, VP/Group Publisher of CMP's Business Technology Group. "We will accelerate investments in the business technology and communications markets, offering unparalleled reach to IS and networking buyers at companies of every size, to the people who manage, build, and design Internet solutions, to service providers, and to the computer telephony and software development markets," he said.

The magazine's advertisers will be offered conversion programs to run in CMP's other business technology media platforms. For details, contact Pamela Watkins at 972-455-4014. Subscribers to WINDOWS MAGAZINE will be notified with options for fulfilling the balance of their subscriptions. Vice President and Publishing Director Pamela Watkins will remain with the company to continue her role in publishing management in the new organization. Editor-in-Chief Russell Glitman will spearhead the conversion to winmag.com.

CMP's Business Technology Group reaches the entire range of business technology buyers. The Group includes the market-leading titles InformationWeek, InternetWeek, Network Computing, Data Communications, and tele.com, as well as online-only products such as TechWeb (http://www.techweb.com/), Planet IT (http://www.planetit.com/) and WebTools (http://www.webtools.com/).

CMP Media Inc. is a leading high-tech media company that provides essential information and marketing services to the entire technology spectrum -- the builders, sellers and users of technology worldwide. With its portfolio of newspapers, magazines, custom publishing, Internet products, research, consulting and conferences, CMP is uniquely positioned to offer marketers comprehensive, integrated solutions tailored to meet their individual needs. Online editions of the company's print publications, along with products and services created exclusively for the Internet, can be found on CMPnet at http://www.cmpnet.com/. NSTL, the company's independent testing lab and consulting organization, serves government, corporate and technology vendor clients around the world.

* Source: Dataquest/Gartner -- projected global business IT spending in 1999.

SOURCE: CMP Media Inc.

Contact: Tonia Ries of CMP Media Inc., 516-562-7448, tries@cmp.com

Website: http://www.cmpnet.com/

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