Important News about Computer Weekly and Microscope

We are writing to formally let you know that on March 25th Reed Business Information Ltd announced the sale of Computer Weekly and MicroScope to TechTarget Inc. The sale is expect to close on April 25. Since we had not scheduled to publish issues of Computer Weekly and MicroScope in the week commencing April 25th, the last issues of Computer Weekly and MicroScope published by RBI will be those printed in the week commencing April 18th.

RBI would like to thank you for your trust and business over the years. Your support has been instrumental in retaining and developing two of the most important brands in the UK IT market.

Computer Weekly and MicroScope are going to an excellent home: TechTarget is a global online IT Media company, recognized for its demand generation leadership. They are a strong, publicly-listed company with an impressive track record of innovation in web publishing and lead generation. Their intention is to put Computer Weekly and MicroScope at the centre of their UK efforts, which already include 5 UK, tech-specific web sites and over 15 staff in London. We see their online experience and infrastructure as a great complement to our strong UK IT leadership and channel audiences.

TechTarget intend to make changes immediately, the first being that both publications will be offered in their digital editions only. For a number of years, we have seen user interest and advertiser support for print publications wane significantly. The clear direction for user purchasing research and for advertiser-based ROI is online. This change will enable the Computer Weekly and MicroScope teams to focus on delivering an even stronger web product. TechTarget have plans to make changes to the digital magazine and to the web sites which they will of course be keen to discuss with you.

During this time of transition both RBI and TechTarget are keen to help you with any questions you may have, I thought it might be helpful to deal with some of the obvious ones:

• All existing orders placed for advertising services to be delivered after April 25th are transferred as part of the sale to TechTarget and are their responsibility. However to make matters easier RBI will invoice for any advertising service delivered in April. Services delivered in May and beyond will be invoiced by TechTarget.
• All orders for advertising services delivered before April 25th are RBI’s responsibility and RBI will fulfill them as it has been contracted to do.
• With regard to any print advertising campaign booked to appear in issues from May onwards, TechTarget will contact you to discuss alternative services or will cancel the future order which ever the customer wishes.
• TechTarget will be rolling out a series of online and digital magazine product options to reach the Computer Weekly and MicroScope audiences in new ways. Your account manager on Computer Weekly and MicroScope will be in touch with you to arrange a time to discuss these options.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me or Bill Crowley, TechTarget’s Senior Vice President of International, contact details below.

On behalf of RBI, I would like to thank you again for your support over the years.

Sincerely,

Dominic Knowlson Publishing Director
Bill Crowley 07554 452 935 or bcrowley@techtarget.com.

A copy of TechTarget’s press release about the acquisition can be found here.