Big. Gigantic. Mammoth. Colossal. Humongous. Use them all in a single sentence to describe Ziff Communications and you'll still fall short of grasping the size of the company.
Ziff Communications is the parent company of Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., which is considering relocating some operations to Utah or Colorado. But Ziff Communications has lots of other offspring, and each of them have numerous offspring of their own.That fact alone should make the company feel at home in Utah.
Ziff-Davis wants to consolidate offices in New York and Boston in a new locale that offers a less expensive, better quality of life for the business and its employees. Ziff-Davis plans to announce its decision in late April or early May, according to spokeswoman Brenda Wheeler.
The company narrowed its search for new digs to two cities: Denver and Sandy. It leaned toward Denver until November, when the city passed Amendment 2, which revoked language banning discrimination against homosexuals. Utah inched up as a contender for the economic development plum.
"Where things stand now you can't quantify," Wheeler said. "It's impossible to say now. The company is evaluating everything very carefully."
So if Utah emerges victorious, who will it be throwing the welcome mat out for?
Pushing the envelope
William Ziff Sr. launched the company in 1927 as publisher of Popular Aviation. The magazine soared to success.
Ziff joined forces with Bernard Davis and formed the Ziff-Davis Publishing Co., with a focus on special interest magazines such as Popular Photography and Modern Bride.
In 1955, William Ziff Jr. assumed control of the company after his father died. Bernard Davis also sold his interest to Ziff Jr. Over the next 25 years, the company added new magazines, such as Car & Driver, Boating, Skiing, Cycle, Travel Weekly and the Official Hotel Resort Guide.
Ziff sold 24 of the titles in the mid-80s when he was diagnosed with cancer. When the cancer went into remission a few years later, Ziff began rebuilding his publishing house. He took aim at the newest special interest: computers.
Today, Ziff-Davis is the No. 1 publisher of computer magazines in the United States. The company, which doubled in size during the past two years, had gross revenues of $607.8 million in 1991.
Ziff-Davis plans to move 1,150 employees to its new location and hire thousands more in coming years. Parent company Ziff Communications employs nearly 4,000 people.
The family tree
The array of companies under the Ziff Communications' umbrella share a single corporate mission: To be in all businesses that provide information about the computer industry and computer technology to people who need it, Wheeler said.
It's a short statement for a big outlook. It brings to mind Microsoft. And king of the hill.
Here's what Ziff Communications is (the asterisk indicates operations that will be relocated):
- Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.
-PC Magazine, a twice-monthly publication with a 1-million-plus circulation, New York City.*
-PC Week, a national weekly newspaper with 230,000 circulation, Medford, Mass.*
-PC/Computing, 800,000 circulation, Foster City, Calif.
-Corporate Computing, 155,000 circulation, Foster City, Calif.
-MacUser, 410,000 circulation, the number one monthly magazine for Macintosh users, Foster City, Calif.
-MacWeek, a national weekly newspaper of 95,000 circulation, San Francisco.
-Computer Shopper, 430,000 circulation, New York City.*
-PC Sources, 250,000 circulation, New York City.*
-Window Sources, 200,000 circulation, New York City.*
-PC Professional and PC Direkt in Germany.
-PC Magazine and PC Direct in the United Kingdom.
-PC Expert and PC Direct in France.
-Seybold puts together conferences, expositions and newsletters on the use of computers in publishing and multimedia, Malibu, Calif.
-MicroDesign Resources is the publisher of Microprocessor Report and organizer of the annual Microprocessor Forum, Sebastopol, Calif.
-Interop, Mountain View, Calif., is the leading producer of seminars and expositions on strategic system integration and connectivity. It also publishes a newsletter called ConneXions, The Inter-op-er-a-bil-ity Report.
-Ziff Expositions.
-The Cobb Group publishes 35 newsletters on software for PC users, Louisville, Ky.
-ZD Press publishes computer books and other information products, Emeryville, Calif.
-Computer Intelligence researches and analyzes the computer and communications industry, LaJolla, Calif.
-InfoCorp researches and analyzes worldwide information technology markets and forecasts growth in all market segments, Santa Clara, Calif.
- Ziff Technology Group
-Ziff Technologies is a full-service provider of integrated computer training and support services, Wayne, Pa.
-Logical Operations publishes training materials for DOS, Macintosh, Windows, OS/2, UNIX and networking products, Rochester, N.Y.
-Help Desk International provides training, educational materials and networking forums for people who work in customer support. It hosts the annual International Help Desk Conference, Colorado Springs.
-Bendata Management Systems develops and markets software products for support centers, Colorado Springs.
-Ziff Institute, Cambridge, Mass., offers products and services for the computer training and support marketplace, including national conferences and expositions, regional seminars, consulting, newsletters, buyers guides, research and on-line forums.
-Ziff Information Services. Host Database Services helps companies make large amounts of information available on-line through third-party suppliers, Medford, Mass. Data Services provides outsourcing and facilities management to companies that process and disseminate information locally or worldwide, Medford, Mass.
- Ziff Desktop Information
-ZiffNet is an on-line information service about computers and computing. It offers public domain software, shareware, discussion forums, etc., Cambridge, Mass.
-Computer Library sells CD-Rom reference databases, Cambridge, Mass.
-Data Sources is a semi-annual directory of hardware, software and telecommunications equipment, Cherry Hill, N.J.
-Public Brand Software is a leading catalog and reference guide to public domain software and shareware, Indianapolis.
- Information Access Group
-Information Access Co. offers electronic library reference database and delivery systems, Foster City, Calif.
-Predicasts has on-line databases dealing with business and applied technology, Foster City, Calif.