MicroScope

MicroScope is a digital magazine and website for IT professionals within the ICT channel in the United Kingdom. Based in London, the magazine is owned by TechTarget; it formerly published as a weekly print magazine under Dennis Publishing Ltd and Reed Business Information for over 29 years. The last printed edition was published on Monday 28 March 2011, leaving only the online edition. The magazines prominent focus is news, analysis, and assessment of issues within the channel marketplace. It was available free to professionals who meet the circulation requirements with it being funded through revenue received from display and classified advertising. In the late 1990s, MicroScope remarked in its masthead “MicroScope – The No.1 news weekly for computer resellers and suppliers”.

Founded in 1982, MicroScope was first circulated by Dennis Publishing Ltd at a time of fundamental change in British computer industry with the microcomputer revolution. Over time, the magazine coverage expanded as the ICT channel emerged. MicroScope’s layout and format changed, adding opinion columns, financial news, US news, European news, City news, MicroSoap, Microscope classified, Spotlight, cartoons, special reports, reader letters and crosswords. The magazine is recognizable by its red nameplate and full-size image covers. Originally, MicroScope started out as a trade newspaper from its recognisable broadsheet traits, containing upwards of 200 pages on certain editions; towards the end of print life MicroScope had evolved into a magazine with its page size and number of pages decreased.

The current editor-in-chief Simon Quicke succeeded Billy MacInnes in 2002. MicroScope claims to be the longest running channel publication in the United Kingdom. Since 2011, the magazines’ content has been published digitally in an e-zine format. As of 2008, its print edition had a weekly circulation of 22,275, 143% up from 1995. MicroScope’s digital magazine and website receives more than 100,000 page views each month and has a significantly higher circulation that its print edition when it transferred to an online format. The magazine’s readership is generally made up of volume distributors, value-added distributors, resellers, MSPs, VARs, ISVs, and technology consultants. It has been named “Computer Journal of the Year” in 1984 by the Computer Press Association, for excellence in the field of computer journalism.