Exciting changes at BZ Media’s SD Times

Everyone at BZ Media is amped for the launch of Systems Management News, which will debut on April 15.

Systems Management News (SMN) is a newspaper very similar to SD Times in format and appearance. Its will provide timely news and analysis to IT systems managers — your colleagues who manage data centers, database administrators, network administrators, and so-on. You can subscribe online at http://www.sysmannews.com.

As part of the launch effort, several members of SD Times‘ editorial team are moving over to SMN: David Rubinstein, editor-in-chief; Mara Leonardi, art director; Alex Handy, senior editor; and Jeff Feinman, assistant editor. I’d like to thank them for their tremendous contributions to SD Times. Dave was part of the launch team for SD Times, back in 1999, Mara came on for our third issue in early 2000, Alex joined us in 2005, and and Jeff signed on in 2006.

By the way, you’ll still see their contributions in SD Times now and again — we have a lot of joint projects planned.

So, where does that leave the SD Times editorial team? In short, strong. I’m putting the chief editor hat back on; I’d worn it from our launch until handing it over to Dave a few years ago. Erin Broadhurst, with SD Times since 2006, is promoted to art director.

P.J. Connolly remains SD Times’ executive editor, and has day-to-day responsibility for writing and reporting. David Worthington, who came to us in 2007 as associate editor, was joined last week by Robert Mullins, our new senior editor. The back-end production of SD Times will continue to be the responsibility of Greg Lupion, managing editor, and Adam LoBelia, associate copy editor.

You know, very few media companies are starting new projects — and even fewer are starting new print publications, like we’re doing with Systems Management News. The trend has been to shut down or de-emphasize newspapers and magazines, and focus on Web sites.

While we certainly believe in the Web — we’ve invested a lot in SDTimes.com — we also believe in the value of hard-copy publications like SD Times, Systems Management News and Software Test & Performance. We know you do too.

Thank you for your support.