There’s a saying that goes ‘when one chapter closes, another one begins.’

This issue of SD Times marks the close of the BZ Media chapter of this publication’s history and opens the chapter on D2 Emerge LLC, a new-age publishing and marketing company founded by two long-time members of the SD Times team: the publisher, David Lyman, and the editor-in-chief … me!

We will work hard to maintain the quality of SD Times and build on the solid foundation that has been built over the past 17 years. Wherever we go, we hear from readers who tell us they look forward to each issue, and they say they’re learning about things they didn’t know they needed to know. And we’re proud of that.

The accolades are certainly nice – and always welcome. Yet, there is nothing more important to us than the stories we tell. Whether putting a spotlight on new trends in the industry and analyzing what they mean, looking at particularly interesting use cases, or helping software providers tell their unique stories to the industry, our mission is to inform, enlighten and even entertain.

But, as much as things will stay the same, there will be some changes. We will look to introduce you to different voices and perspectives from the industry, inviting subject matter experts to share their knowledge and vision of changes in our industry. The exchange of ideas and free flow of information are the bedrock of our publishing philosophy.

We will somewhat broaden the scope of our coverage to include topics that might once have been thought of as ancillary to software development but are now important areas for you to follow as silos explode and walls come tumbling down in IT shops around the world.

We will work to improve our already excellent digital offerings by bettering the user experience and the way in which we deliver content to you. So, whether you’re reading SD Times on a desktop at work, or a tablet at a coffee shop, or even on your cellphone at the beach, we want you have the same wonderful experience.

For our advertisers, we will help guide you toward the best way to reach our readers, whether through white papers, webinars, or strategic ad placement across our platforms. And, we will look to add to an already robust list of services we can provide to help you tailor your messages in a way that best suits our readers.

BZ Media was a traditional publishing company, with a print-first attitude (only because there wasn’t an Internet when we began printing SD Times back in 2000). D2 Emerge offers an opportunity to shift toward a digital-first posture while retaining all that is good and productive about print publishing.

I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge BZ Media founders Ted Bahr and Alan Zeichick, who took a cynical, grizzled daily newspaperman and turned him into a cynical, grizzled technology editor. But as I often say, covering this space is never dull. Years ago, I covered sports for a few newspapers, and after a while, I saw that I had basically seen every outcome there was. A walk-off home run, a last-second touchdown, a five-goal hockey game. The only thing that seemed to change were the players and teams. Sure, once in awhile a once-in-a-lifetime player comes along, and we all enjoy his feats. But mostly sports do not change.

Technology, on the other hand, changes at breakneck speed. As we worked to acquire SD Times, I had a chance to look back at the first issues we published, and realized just how far we’ve come. Who could have known in 2000, when we were writing about messaging middleware and that one day we’d be writing about microservices architectures, mixed reality and a software-defined world (aside from Nostradamus, of course!)

Back then, we covered companies such as Sun Microsystems, IONA Technologies, Rational Software, BEA Systems, Allaire Corp, Bluestone Software and many more that were either acquired or couldn’t keep up with changes in the industry.

The big news at the JavaOne conference in 2000 was extreme clustering of multiple JVMs on a single server, while elsewhere, the creation of an XML Signature specification looked to unify authentication, and Corel Corp. was looking for cash to stay alive after a proposed merger with Borland Corp. (then Inprise) fell apart.

We’re excited to begin the next chapter in the storied (pardon the pun) history of SD Times, and we’re glad you’re coming along with us as OUR story unfolds.