At first glance, today is like any other day for The VAR Guy. Our anonymous blogger is seated at Starbucks, sipping a Venti Mocha Latte, and tapping into free WiFi.

The VAR Guy

August 30, 2011

2 Min Read
The VAR Guy: New Owner, Same Attitude, Big Opportunities

thevarguy celebrates

At first glance, today is like any other day for The VAR Guy. Our anonymous blogger is seated at Starbucks, sipping a Venti Mocha Latte, and tapping into free WiFi. But if you check the news wires you’ll notice one big difference today: Nine Lives Media Inc., the company behind The VAR Guy, has been acquired by Penton Media. So, how will the deal impact The VAR Guy’s unique voice? In short, The VAR Guy’s voice is about to grow even louder. A lot louder. Here’s why.

Penton Media is the largest privately held, independent B2B publisher in the United States. Led by CEO Sharon Rowlands, Penton reaches 6 million professionals every month with critical business information. And the Penton websites generated 276 million page views last year. Terms like “scalability”  and “reach” — within highly targeted audiences, of course — come to The VAR Guy’s mind.

Nine Lives Media is now a business unit of Penton Media, reporting into Penton’s Technology Group — which includes powerful brands like the Windows IT Pro community and Paul Thurrott’s Windows SuperSite. The Nine Lives Media team and its leading IT Channel communities — The VAR Guy, MSPmentor and Talkin’ Cloud — report into Peg Miller, Penton’s Technology Group Market Leader.

So how does The VAR Guy feel about the deal? Let’s put it this way: Our anonymous blogger has a wide smile on his face today. After launching in 2008, The VAR Guy quickly emerged as the IT Channel’s top blog. Our resident blogger’s unique voice and quick-hit perspectives have attracted more than 15,000 reader comments.

Now, The VAR Guy and his sister sites gain a powerful B2B parent in Penton Media. In a prepared statement, Penton’s Miller said:

“Nine Lives is the perfect complement to our leading IT and developer brands, enabling us  to provide both business and technology acumen to the entire technology ecosystem of IT professionals and developers, channel providers, and independent software vendors and hardware vendors. We’ve already seen strong growth in the IT channel with adoption of our newly launched Penton Marketing Services — helping them to run their businesses more effectively.”

The VAR Guy’s existing leadership — Nine Lives President Amy Katz and Executive VP/Editorial Director Joe Panettieri — remain in place, as do The VAR Guy’s sales and editorial teams. You’ll continue to read unique insights from folks like Charlene O’Hanlon, David Courbanou, Christopher Tozzi and more.

Hmmm… Now that you know the news, you can understand why The VAR Guy’s latte tastes a little sweeter this morning.

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