''PC/Computing'' (later ''Ziff-Davis Smart Business'') was a monthly

Ziff Davis Ziff Davis, Inc. is an American digital media and internet company. First founded in 1927 by William Bernard Ziff Sr. and Bernard George Davis, the company primarily owns technology-oriented media websites, online shopping-related services, an ...

publication that for most of its run focused on publishing reviews of IBM-compatible (or " Wintel") hardware and software and tips and reference information for users of such software and hardware.

History and profile

Established in 1988 under the guidance of founding publisher and columnist

Michael Kolowich Michael Edmund Kolowich (born August 28, 1952) is a new media and internet content entrepreneur and documentary filmmaker. He is chief content officer of OpenExchange Inc. and is founding producer of DigiNovations, a digital multimedia production ...

, the magazine was known for its irreverent style and annual "

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Superguide" and "

Notebook A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking. History ...

Torture Test" features. The latter feature involved baking, freezing, shaking, dropping, and splashing notebook computers from various manufacturers and then rating the machines based on which ones survived the "torture" and which ones failed. It also featured columns by

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

Paul Somerson (formerly of ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...

'', another Ziff-Davis publication),

John C. Dvorak John C. Dvorak (; born 1952) is an American columnist and broadcaster in the areas of technology and computing. His writing extends back to the 1980s, when he was a regular columnist in a variety of magazines. He was vice president of Mevio ...

Gil Schwartz Gil Schwartz (May 20, 1951May 2, 2020), known by his pen name Stanley Bing, was an American business humorist and novelist. He wrote a column for '' Fortune'' magazine for more than twenty years after a decade at '' Esquire'' magazine. He was the ...

, and, for a time in the 1990s,

Penn Jillette Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American magician, actor, musician, inventor, television presenter, and author, best known for his work with fellow magician Teller as half of the team Penn & Teller. The duo has been featured ...

. For some years, the magazine ran a regular column featuring an often-silly "debate" between Dvorak and Somerson. Michael Kolowich was the publisher and columnist until 1991. The magazine was based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The magazine changed its editorial focus from technology to Internet business in January 2000 and abandoned its original name shortly thereafter to try to capitalize on interest in the so-called

"dot-com" boom The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

of the late 1990s. When the technology

bubble Bubble, Bubbles or The Bubble may refer to: Common uses * Bubble (physics), a globule of one substance in another, usually gas in a liquid ** Soap bubble * Economic bubble, a situation where asset prices are much higher than underlying funda ...

burst in mid-2000, the rechristened "Ziff-Davis Smart Business" in January 2000 lost its ad market. The magazine is the recipient of the

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

in the Personal Service category in 2000. It folded in 2002.

References

Monthly magazines published in the United States Defunct computer magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1988 Magazines disestablished in 2002 Magazines published in San Francisco {{compu-mag-stub