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This week we take a trip down memory lane to discuss the highlights of our 60-some odd collective years of working as B2B journalists in the technology field. There are some great stories, such as Meeting Bill Gates (Paul at a press junket, David at an industry conference) and worked with Greg Gianforte, now a member of Congress from Montana after making several fortunes starting technology businesses. Being a tech journalist has its risks: Charles Wang, when he was chairman of Computer Associates, campaigned to get Paul fired from Computerworld, but the two later became friends. David’s parody of Miss Manners got him a cease-and-desist letter from the columnist’s lawyers. We both recall what the introduction of the web did for our industry and our world back in 1994, and how quickly the publishing market changed as a result. David recalls with fondness his interaction with Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet and now a professor at UT/Austin.

David remembers writing about a skunk works project from IBM to use spreadsheets as a front-end to their mainframe databases, and noted how the sole programmer behind the project, Oleg Vishnepolsky, later said his career was changed by the articles. Paul recalls the “old IBM,” which once IBM mistakenly put out a press release and then disavowed what it said. 

We have lots of other memories, and hope you enjoy this episode.   

About David Strom

David Strom is a former editor-in-chief of Network Computing and Tom's Hardware who has written two computer networking books and thousands of articles about B2B IT.

About Paul Gillin

Paul Gillin, host of FIR B2B, is a veteran technology journalist and a thought leader in new media. Since 2005, he has advised marketers and business executives on strategies to optimize their use of social media and online channels to reach buyers cost-effectively. Full bio