Saturday, January 31, 2009

“Visual Studio Magazine” Merges Print Operations with “Redmond Developer News”

According to Michael Desmond, founding editor of Redmond Developer News and editor-at-large of Redmond magazine, RDN, the twice-monthly publication for development managers, will be integrating its print operations into VSM commencing in February 2009.

Michael’s Better Together: RDN Merges with Visual Studio Magazine post of 1/30/2009 for RDN’s Desmond File blog explains:

[Y]ou'll see a lot of RDN content in future issues of VSM. RDN Senior Editor Kathleen Richards (krichards@1105media.com) will be in charge of running the RDN Web site, RedDevNews.com. Tuned to the needs of software development managers, RDN online will continue to offer a unique blend of news, opinion and technology guidance. I expect good things out of that site in the weeks and months to come. …

VSM, of course, is the leading publication for enterprise-oriented professional developers. The publication actually dates clear back to 1991, when it was launched as Basic Pro Magazine and later became Visual Basic Programmers Journal. Today, VSM delivers practical, proven and unbiased how-to articles and insight for enterprise development professionals working with Microsoft tools and technologies. VSM and RDN have been sibling publications since 2007, after 1105 Media purchased VSM's parent company, FTP.

The decision to combine RDN with the VSM print publication reflects the fact that developers need context. They need to know about the tools they are mastering so they can make better decisions on how to use them. To that end, future issues of VSM will deliver the kind of in-depth features, timely technology and product news, and expert insight that you've seen in RDN since 2006.

My 1105 Media Acquires Fawcette Technical Publications' Assets post of 1/3/2007 covered 1105 Media’s purchase of FTP operating assets, which included VSM, the VSLive!, Software Architecture Summit, Web Design World, and Web Builder 2.0 conferences, and Java Pro, Window Server System Magazine, and Enterprise Architect online magazines, and Insight newsletters, including .NETInsight, JAVAInsight, XML & Web Services Insight, Software Architecture Insight, and Web Design & Development Insight.

I’ve been a VBPJ and VSM contributing editor for about 10 years and have written 21 VSM cover stories and countless other Database Design and related articles over the past five years. I’ll miss my close relationship with former VSM editor-in-chief Pat Meader, about whom Michael writes:

Finally, those of you who are VSM readers are likely familiar with outgoing Editor in Chief Patrick Meader and Managing Editor Guy Wright. It's been my pleasure to work on occasion with Patrick over the past two years, and I've respected him deeply for his intelligence, composure and commitment to principle. Patrick is as dedicated and forthright a person as I've ever run across in my 16 years in IT publishing, and his success over the years at VSM is testament to that.

RDN’s Kathleen Richards will serve as VSM’s executive editor. I’ve written several RDN stories for Kate and have enjoyed the chance to publish occasional RDM-style technology news pieces in addition to VSM’s traditional “how-to” programming articles with fully functional Windows and Web forms sample projects, such as the OakLeaf Systems Azure Table Services Sample Project (for the February 2009 VSM issue) and OakLeaf Systems Azure Blob Services Test Harness (for a later 2009 issue.) VSM founder Jim Fawcette paraphrased Steve Ballmer’s “Developers! Developers! Developers!” rant with his demand for “Code! Code! Code!” in VSM stories.

It will be interesting to see how code-centric VSM readers react to RDN content juxtaposed with C# and VB articles as in the January 2009 issue’s “Partition Web Apps Intelligently” cover story by Steve Michelotti and “Connect to the Cloud” interview with Microsoft Corporate Vice President Robert Wahbe by Jeffrey Schwartz and Michael Desmond. Let me have your reaction to this event in the comments.

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