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Longtime Microsoft-centric journalist and blogger Paul Thurrott has left Supersite for Windows, and the website he founded sixteen years ago, and its sister site Windows IT Pro, for reasons explained in his farewell post. The sites (the former of which is still branded 'Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows' for now, but that will surely change) will be maintained by a staff of journalists employed by Penton, an information services conglomerate.
Thurrott's new site, thurrott.com, went live on January 17 with a photo of a coffee cup; the site's tab headings indicate a continuation of the Microsoft focus, but the tag "News & Analysis for Tech Enthusiasts" leaves the door open for broader coverage. Thurrott has also signed on as a contributor to Petri IT Knowledgebase; the timing of the move was not coincidental:
So when Blue Whale Web Managing Partner George Coll and I had the opportunity to bring Paul aboard as a contributor to the Petri IT Knowledgebase and to partner with him to launch an all-new tech website at Thurrott.com, we jumped at the chance.
(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Sunday January 18 2015, @04:34PM
While I do not disagree that Microsoft uses Supersite to push their products, I do not agree that is all it the site is about. Paul’s articles over the years gave very good and in-depth coverage on things going on with Windows and that is important if you work in that world. If you work in the OSS world, then yes, Paul’s site is not a particularly valuable resource. The articles cover topics and push a pure Microsoft approach to them... but that is Ok because it was always very open and unapologetic about it. This is a useful thing for those of us that live and work with Microsoft products on a daily basis.
I know I learned about many upcoming features with Windows through Paul’s articles; if you are a sysadmin working with MS products, you know how opaque the TechNet articles can be – sometimes you cannot even figure out what functionality the TechNet article is trying to explain. The articles on Supersite were often a great breakdown on major pieces of functionality that you could use as a roadmap when trawling through TechNet.
There is a huge marketing component to the site but, to my mind, that does not take away from the quality of the information and coverage that is also there. No company is going to offer something for nothing – be it Microsoft or RedHat or whomever. There will always be a subtext of how the company will benefit. And that is Ok because that is how the world works.
In any case, I am happy to see Paul will be contributing to Petri IT knowledge base as well as continuing to write articles.