Redmond Channel Partner Magazine to Debut in July

Posted on March 11, 2005

101communications, the publisher of Redmond magazine, has announced an expansion of the Redmond franchise: Redmond Channel Partner magazine. Redmond Channel Partner magazine will launch at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2005 in Minneapolis, Minn., this July. Redmond Channel Partner is a sister publication to Redmond magazine, which focuses on the needs of Microsoft IT professionals.

The magazine will launch in July as a bi-monthly, with additional 2005 editions coming out in September and November. Plans call for the magazine to follow a monthly frequency in 2006. Redmond Channel Partner will launch with 25,000 readers, all of whom sell large volumes of Microsoft and third-party s oftware and hardware.

Redmond Channel Partner is led by a team of IT and Microsoft publishing professionals. Founding Redmond Channel Partner Publisher Henry Allain re-launched Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine last October as Redmond magazine. Under Allain's leadership, Redmond outgrew all other titles in the developer/technical category, according to MINS B2B Report. In 2004, Redmond ad pages increased more than 23 percent over the previous year.

Redmond Channel Partner editorial is led by Doug Barney, who serves as editorial director. Barney has been a technology journalist for more than 20 years, serving as a writer, news editor and editor in chief for several publications. He was the founding editor in chief of Redmond magazine, and was recently editor in chief of Network Computing. Barney also served as executive editor of news for Network World newspaper for six years, where he ran both print and online news operations.

"I started my career two decades ago covering the channel during the birth of the PC market. Today the channel is more exciting than ever, with new applications that offer competitive advantage, new ways of driving IT efficiency, and of course the need to build systems that are secure against the growing onslaught of viruses, spam and hacker intrusions. The channel is key to building the IT infrastructures of the future," said Barney.

Joining Barney as editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner is Paul Desmond, who has been working as an IT trade press reporter and editor since 1988. Desmond spent 11 years at Network World, including three years as news editor and four years as features editor. Desmond's tenure as features editor, which included responsibility for product reviews and opinion pages, coincided with Barney's stint heading up the Network World news organization, giving the two primary day-to-day responsibility for the publication's content. In 2004, the pair once again joined forces when Desmond became the founding editor of Redmond magazine. Prior to that he served more than two years as executive editor of Microsoft Executive Circle magazine, a quarterly publication sponsored by Microsoft.

Founded in 1998, 101communications is an integrated media company aimed at specialized targets within the information technology community. Reaching more than 1.5 million IT professionals around the world, the current portfolio includes nine magazines, more than 30 conferences and digital offerings.