Paul Schindler started with CMP (he was employee 100) in April 1979 at Computer Systems News, a bi-weekly tabloid newspaper with such editors as Al Perlman (went on to Ziff), Maureen O’Gara (edited a newsletter) and Tom Ewing (freelance writer). Schindler was West Coast Editor. For two years, accounting thought he was a salesman because there were no other editors who did not work at company headquarters in Manhasset, Long Island, New York.

In November 1979, he received permission from publisher Tom Cooper to work from home as a full-time employee, which he did until he was laid off in 2001.

In January, 1980, CMP founded Information Systems News a bi-weekly on the opposite schedule from CSN, making him the only journalist in the company with weekly deadlines.

In January 1981, when his first daughter, Marlow, was born, he asked for permission to drop one of the two newspapers. He decided to go with easy-going Jim Moran at ISN rather than hard-charging Al Perman at CSN, a decision Perlman (now a powerful Ziff Davis executive) apparently never forgave or forgot.

In March 1983, during his 30th year, his head filled with romantic mush about capitalism and capturing the value of his work, he left CMP for nine months to work as a consultant with Richard Dalton, a former fellow at the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park, Calif., in a little company called Keep/Track Corp. Fortunately, since he was gone less than a year, his pension returned even if his vacation benefits didn’t.

INFORMATION WEEK

In August 1984, Drake Lundell (destined to be a major presence in his life), came to CMP Summer Conference. He wasn’t an employee yet because of his non-compete agreement with Ziff (where he founded PC Week after decades at IDG/Computerworld), but he talked to staffers about a wild plan to turn our bi-weekly newspaper into a weekly newsmagazine.

Paul Schindler, Jim Moran, Paula Klein, Drake Lundell

In January 1985, ISN became InformationWeek, with Drake Lundell as publisher and Jim Moran as editor. In retrospect, it would have been better to transfer out all the newspaper people and start over with magazine people, Paul included.

As it was, the entire staff left or was laid off in the next 18 months (starting with Moran in June 1985), except for John McCormick and Paul. Lundell temporarily took over as editor in June 1985; in August, Paul wrote a third of the magazine himself.

In 18 months, all but two of the people in this IW staff picture had quit or were fired

From fall 1985 to March 1988, InformationWeek drifted editorially, ending up in the hands of the late Dennis Eskow, aka Dennis the Menace, aka Hurricane Dennis. He was so hard to work for that Paul left the magazine in the spring of 1988 for a six-month sabbatical. The stated purpose was to help Vicki prepare for her MFCC exam, which he did by watching the girls and testing her for orals, but he never intended to go back to work for Dennis.

In August 1988, Sam Whitmore, then editor of PC Week asked Paul to work for his weekly tabloid newspaper as a senior technical analyst and columnist at almost double Paul’s CMP pay. He flew Paul to Boston for an interview which went well. Mike Azzara asked Paul to work for Open Systems Today when his sabbatical was over, but Paul took the PC Week job, a decision Mike (once a powerful CMP executive) apparently never forgave or forgot.

In 1988-89 Paul spent 14 months at PC Week, a Ziff-Davis publication. David Strom was his first supervisor, then Jennifer DeJong. He had a column, then lost it. At the end (November 1989) he was writing a page called the Business Application Digest.

He returned to CMP again, to find InformationWeek in the hands of Becky Barna and Layton McCartney, as well as Jerry Colonna. They took him back a week after he left PC Week. He was there a year, but drifted.

In January 1991, he joined Drake in forming PC Vision, a monthly videotape magazine for IT professionals. The Gulf War I sunk the pilot test, and by April he was back at InformationWeek, where he served his final and dispirited five-month stint.

He joined WINDOWS Magazine when CMP acquired it in August 1991. He began as Editor-At-Large, then worked on news and reviews as Northern California Bureau Editor, and then became CD Editor in January 1995. Schindler and his associate editor Tom LaSusa, between them, edited, assembled and produced the quarterly WINDOWS Magazine CD until Schindler’s departure on November 11, 1996 for CMP Media’s First-TV, the first 24-hour Internet Television network.

Schindler ran First-TV’s syndicated broadcast radio program, Life on Line Radio. When First-TV was reorganized on May 25, 1997, the radio program was cancelled and Schindler joined CMPNet. He was assigned to NetInsider, which became TechWeb Internet in the spring of 1998, then became producer of TechWeb Today in December 1998. He launched the CMPNet Week in Review as a RealAudio program on the net in April 1998. The name was changed to the TechWeb Week in Review in June 1998. The newscast was dropped in November 1998 and the show became a panel discussion. In January 1999 the audio version was dropped in favor of a version on the TechWeb Today G2 player.

On March 1, 1999, Schindler became Executive Editor of Byte.com and changed the show into the Byte Week in Review.

As of June 1999, CMP Media became a wholly owned subsidiary of the UK-based United Business Media (formerly United News and Media; CMP was purchased by the U.S. unit, Miller Freeman, which became CMP).

On July 29, 1999, Schindler was named editor of Byte.com and was also named editor of Winmag.com. Shortly thereafter, Daniel Dern was named Executive Editor of Byte.com.

On March 19, 2001, Winmag.com was shut down and Byte.com was moved into CMP’s STG division–the Byte.com Audio Review and the Winmag.com Audio Report ceased production that day.

Schindler was put in charge of TechWeb’s multimedia efforts and had developed the Information Week and Network Computing Week in Review audiocasts. CMP closed down all its web multimedia on Oct. 2, 2001; “Ted” laid Schindler off.