After hubris, nemesis: only on Monday, Ziff-Davis was crowing that PC Magazine had become the first computer publication with over 1m paid subscribers, but the same day, the Washington Post was going with an unsavoury little story that PC Week and PC Magazine columnist William Zachmann had resigned alleging that Ziff pressured him to write more favourably about Microsoft Corp and Windows – I have been subjected to improper pressure to please a major advertiser, Zachmann told the Post – This is well over 50% of my income I am kissing goodbye here, but I just decided it was time to take a stand; Zachmann’s columns had compared Windows unfavourably with OS/2; a Ziff flack told the Post that the charge was dumb and that his column was becoming overstrident; Microsoft vice-president Jonathan Lazarus told the Post that his company was concerned about misfacts in the columns – We expressed our displeasure; the paper also says on the evening the whole thing blew up, Zachmann got a phone call from a Microsoft official who said he had heard Zachmann would be taking a more positive view of Microsoft and Windows; in the current issue of PC Week, Microsoft has seven pages of paid advertising, IBM has three pages.
