A New Design for a New Tech Climate

The economy, technology and the world have changed dramatically over the last two years. Where once the stock market seemed to have no top, now we try to determine if we are bouncing off the bottom. Where once companies rushed to buy technology at any cost, now they scrutinize each investment dollar. And the world at large is a more uncertain and somewhat more forbidding stage than at the turn of the new century.

IT companies are busy reinventing and restructuring to be poised to capitalize on the time when technology scrutiny turns into technology investment.

It is within the milieu of change that we bring you our first major redesign in two years. When we went to you, our readers, asking what information you needed in todays changed climate, you wanted news reported by professionals willing to ask the hard questions, opinion from experts not tainted by financial affiliation or personal gain, and reviews conducted by Labs analysts who understand the design and requirements of enterprise-level information systems. This weeks redesign directly addresses those requests.

This week, those topics range from Stan Gibson asking EMC CEO Joe Tucci to define the future of the company for the customer, to the recently cleared HP and Compaq merger, to Jason Brooks review of the just-released OpenOffice.org 1.0. We are the first with the news, the most authoritative source of opinion and the only publication with a dedicated reviews section. Weve also aligned our Web site and e-mail newsletters.

The redesign was a team effort at eWEEK. Our design director, Paul Schaffrath, took on the task of creating a design that was clean, easy to navigate and authoritative. The news crew under Mike Zimmerman undertook aligning the beat system with the topics most important to the readership. The eWEEK Labs department under John Taschek took on the task of having three times the amount of editorial space once allotted to Labs. Hey, they asked for it. And, of course, the copy desk, layout and art departments had to deal with all the copy cascading into the new design as the same old deadlines continued to rule.

Now, as the big chill of IT investment is showing signs of a thaw, we hope you will find eWEEK your required companion in helping you make the right technology decisions for your company.

How are we doing? Let me know at eric_lundquist@ziffdavis.com.