Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!fluke!kurt
From: kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: R.I.P. BYTE
Message-ID: <5040@fluke.COM>
Date: 1 Sep 88 04:49:31 GMT
Sender: news@tc.fluke.COM
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 38

It's the old market segmentation CuisinArt again...Too many MBA's and not
enough reporters and editors.  It goes like this.

A company buys ad space to show off a product...let's say an MS/DOS
computer.  They want to have the biggest possible audience and have the most
bang for their ad buck.  BYTE naturally wants to oblige them -- it's how
they make money.  If they target MS/DOS heavily, it makes this customer
happier and the customer buys bigger and more frequent ads.

There's a lot of MS/DOS customers in the world, and the MBA's say "if we
focus on this market segment, we can attract more of this business.
Revenues will go up up up.  All those other market segments are too small
to bother with anyway."

For awhile it works.  New MS/DOS customers buy more and bigger ads.  Revenue
goes up.  The MBA's are "right".  Oh sure they lose a few clients with
oddball machines, but it's nothing compared to the new business.  They can't
sell ad space fast enough, and they don't even need so many articles.

Funny thing though, all those readers who liked BYTE's former ecclectic
collection of topics begin to defect.  Circulation begins to suffer.  Guys
with big ads in BYTE are also getting calls from PC Week, PC World, PC News,
PC Today, and all those other PC mags.  They only do MS/DOS, and their ads
are cheaper.  In fact, they have BETTER MS/DOS coverage.  Now BYTE has to
compete with specialists, but they are losing circulation.  It's hard to get
people enthused to make (expensive) editorial improvements when you are
losing money.  Things are going wrong for the MBA's, and they don't
understand why their rote-memorized axioms (that got 'em an A on the final
exam) aren't working.  So they do what anyone would do.  Sell out quick
while BYTE still looks good on a resume' and go off to PC News and Clone
Report with the client list.

What MBA's never learn is that it is the technical contributors who make any
business a success.  BYTE's success was in it's techical content.  Maybe the
buyers will understand that.  McGraw Hill is on the block.  Probably a good
thing.

Kurt Guntheroth