I love it when we start a new journal, especially if there are new toys. And you've got to admit that when it comes to slick new toys, it's going to be hard to beat Windows CE. After all, not only are there the colorful new Palm-sized PCs and not only are there the nearly full-size laptop devices like the Jornada, there's even the AutoPC, the Sega Dreamcast, and a whole host of embedded systems. Plus, we're told, soon WebTV will be Windows CE based.

That's exciting to me. What's also exciting is the spirit and enthusiasm of the Windows CE users I've met in the months prior to launching this journal. The people who are dedicated to this platform are very enthusiastic proponents of Windows CE and Windows CE devices.

We've been in the journal publishing business for a whole bunch of years. I've been involved as an editor for Ziff-Davis (a large technical magazine publisher) throughout most of my professional career (since 1980, in fact). In the past five years, Denise Amrich (our managing editor) and I have founded two journals for the Cobb Group division of Ziff-Davis (Workspace for Lotus Notes and the Insider for Lotus cc:Mail), produced a CD-ROM based journal for IBM/Lotus (The Notes Enthusiast) and were then asked to take over editorial responsibility for The Notes Report (a print journal originally from IDG, then acquired by Ziff). For a variety of reasons (not the least of which being that readers were more inclined to read free, online content than pay $50-$150 for a print subscription), these publications are no longer active.

In January 1998, we went independent and launched PalmPower Magazine, a highly successful Web-based publication on the Palm organizer and in August we launched DominoPower, our Notes and Domino publication.

Whenever we start a new journal, there are a couple of getting-ready phases. The first, of course, is deciding on the topic for a new publication. After that, we approach the company who's the primary market maker (i.e., Microsoft for Windows CE, 3Com for Palm computers, and IBM's Lotus division for Notes and Domino) and negotiate all the marketing and business elements necessary for making a publication work. These typically include the appropriate license for use of the trademark (this is how we're able to use Windows CE as part of our publication's title) and a "reader feed" from the market maker's Web site to our new journal.

Once we're sure we have an agreement in place, it's time to put the journal itself together. This is the real preparation phase. Our sales team starts looking for advertisers and the editorial team starts recruiting authors. We also do the logo design, the journal layout, and all of the technical work necessary to create a new publication Web site.