9. IDG and Ziff-Davis
Frenemies since: 1982, when IDG thought it had sealed a deal to buy PC Magazine but discovered that Ziff-Davis had snapped it up. PC World was immediately founded by most of the original staff of PC Magazine, who had walked off the job when they discovered the magazine had been sold to Ziff-Davis without their knowledge.
Acts of friendship: The Ziff-IDG combat extended to the Mac front when IDG founded Macworld in 1984 and Ziff-Davis acquired a magazine startup called MacUser in 1985. But in 1997, when it was an entirely rational assumption to believe that Apple was on its deathbed, the two companies formed a joint venture called Mac Publishing which published a Macworld which represented a merger of the old Macworld and the old MacUser. The surprising partnership lasted until 2001, when IDG bought back Ziff’s share. (It continues to publish Macworld and eventually relaunched MacUser as a blog.)
Acts of enmity: Lengthy and complicated legal wrangling resulting from the origins of PC Mag and PC World; intense rivalry on multiple fronts of technology publishing that went on for decades and spanned multiple countries, including PC World vs. PC Magazine, Macworld vs. MacUser, InfoWorld vs. eWeek, GamePro vs. multiple Ziff gaming titles, and more.
Current state of the frenemyship: PCWorld.com and PCMag.com certainly remain competitive. But Ziff has closed or sold off most of its publications that went head-to-head with IDG properties. And as with technology publishers, both IDG and Ziff’’s biggest challenges stem from basic changes in the business model behind media companies, not from traditional sparring partners. I’d say that the end of PC Magazine’s magazine version last month brought a symbolic end to the two companies’ long arch-rivalry.
(Superfluous disclaimer: I used to work at PC World and spent almost all of the time from 1991 until earlier this year as an IDG employee. Macworld first issue from Low End Mac; Macuser first issue from Mac Mothership.)
December 11th, 2008 at 6:05 am
Great list, I enjoyed that, thanks. ;-)
December 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Great job on this, Harry. Many of us have lived through the stuff you’ve written about here, but were we really paying attention? On some levels, yes, but we all tend to be revisionist historians to a certain degree. With this article you’ve put a stake in the ground. Would love to see you do a periodic update on the same 12 — maybe adding or deleting as new frenemies develop or others lose pertinence.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
What about nVidia and AMD? It seems like that’s a big one.
December 17th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Great article!
December 18th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Frenemies—- are they not just competitors? OR two persons/entities that have a mutual love hate relationship that shift from one end of teh spectrum to another….
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 am
Wow. Microsoft has many enemies.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Not to be a grammar policeman, but it seems you spelled “enmity” wrong.
Oh, well. Pretty awesome article. That there are six pages containing Microsoft relationships says something….
May 4th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Wow, I immensely enjoyed this list. Microsoft leads the ranks with enemies on almost both ends of the list.
I’m missing the iFruad producers vs Apple on the list though. :P
http://kixtrix.com
May 8th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Microsoft and Nintendo! While it may not be cpu-based, nintendo helped microsoft get going with the xbox, which then completely left nintendo to branch out their own and is now nintendo’s biggest opponent (sorry sony). Not to mention how nintendo is so bitchy about making sure that nobody but themselves and add programs and games to their consoles, so there isn’t a nintendo game on the xbox and vise versa. And, Gates has famously said quote, “”There’s room for innovation (on the wii), but moving that controller around — it’s something that’s not mainstream for most games.” Who knows? Maybe Gates will give in to 114,000,000 dollars a year of motion-sensitivity and make a motion-sensitive Halo. YES.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:01 am
You forgot Google and Mozilla, google has always been a big but quiet supporter of firefox, and then they release Chrome…
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November 4th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Great article!I enjoyed that, thanks. ;-)