Ziff's new operating system - Ziff-Communications Co. Ziff-Davis Publishing Co

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March 1, 1994 by Paul McDougall

Others question whether Ziff can successfully re-enter the consumer market, where it has not had much presence since 1984, when Bill Ziff, diagnosed with cancer, sold special-interest titles like Flying and Skiing--and most of his other magazines--to CBS and Rupert Murdoch for more than $700 million. "Ziff-Davis is much better at acquiring magazines than it is at launching them," says David Orlow, a former Ziff-Davis vice president of corporate planning and now a New York City-based magazine consultant. "So one wonders how successful they can be launching in a market where they have been absent for some time." 'We jumped the gun'

Indeed, the risk of a fast-changing market became clear to Ziff-Davis last year, when it shuttered Corporate Computing. Launched in June 1992 at a cost of about $17 million, it was supposed to have been a magazine for professional information managers who use everything from mainframes to high-end Unix workstations. But from the time the book launched until it folded the following spring, standards-based desktop technology had replaced many of the systems it was intended to cover. When Ziff killed Corporate Computing, it also pulled the plug on PC Sources, a direct-sales title that was beginning to suffer from the shakeout in the mail-order PC market.

Hippeau attributes those failures to the company's entrepreneurial ethos: "We jumped the gun because we refused to believe information that told us we should be more cautious." But in the wake of the closures, Ziff-Davis insiders say, executives began a cost-cutting campaign that targeted, among other things, the company's lavish travel allowances.

Hippeau, as chairman, is also said to have asked top editors to rely more on in-house copy rather than freelance pieces--leading some staffers to complain about being overworked. "He's more bottom-line oriented than Bill and this will become apparent as he solidifies his reign," a Ziff editor predicts.

Hippeau says no major cuts were made and none are in the works, but concedes he has taken some steps to streamline the company. "We want to be rational in our business practices and in tune with the times. Just because we are a successful company does not mean we don't want to be efficient; I would not characterize these as cutbacks, but I would characterize them as making sure that, for instance, our travel policies are in tune with the times." He adds that "our people will continue to stay at Hyatts, and not at Days Inns."

But austerity programs will not guarantee Ziff-Davis long-term prosperity. That will depend on the company's ability to convince the computer industry that its books are still the place to advertise. With an anecdote that reflects his vision of the computer as the new focal point of American home life, Hippeau dismisses the naysayers and explains why he thinks Ziff-Davis is a sure bet to lead in the information age: "The dream of the computer industry is to have products that are totally plug and play. But we are years away from that. My daughter uses an older operating system, and a lot of newer products make use of video and multimedia that it cannot play. So I tried to upgrade her computer. It was absolutely no way. People for a long time are going to rely on specialized information to make their computers do whatever it is they want them to do. Our products will fulfill that need."