Well, put a bit more accurately. Over the last couple of weeks/months I’ve been in discussions with the guys at TechTarget. And I am pleased to announce that TechTarget Inc. will be acquiring the site – and me. Clearly, I can’t go into the specifics of the deal as that is commercially sensitive. But lets just say I’m very pleased – and along with McGraw-Hill sending me advanced copies of my vSphere4 book – this week has end with a very big smile on my face…

So what does this mean for you my loyal readership. Well, firstly RTFM will continue for the time being to be a separate website from TechTarget. I will be generating content for both RTFM and TechTarget for the foreseeable future. I’ll just be posting stuff over on TechTarget – where it feels “right” whereas stuff that seems more appropriate for RTFM stays on RTFM. Of course, anything I write for TechTarget – I will extract over here, and point you to the site.

What I get from the deal (apart from the obvious!) is much, much more free time. So starting this year, I will be reducing the amount of time I spend training – to have more time to write/blog/videos/attend conferences and so on. I will still be an instructor for the foreseeable – because, well I enjoy standing up and passing on what I know face-to-face. Plus there’s something special about the person-to-person stuff I do – like being asked questions on the spot. Scary I know that sounds. Additionally, I find the regular contact with people who doing it for real – keeps me in touch with coal face of modern IT – I want to avoid the danger of slipping completely into the world of the media.

The deal with TechTarget also allows me to me keep my print-media side of things going too. So I am still committed to an SRM 4.0 book, and yes believe it or not a SRM 4.1 is already gestation. There should be a 2nd Edition of the vSphere4 book in the pipeline too – just as soon as VMware start to release a major revision – like a vSphere4.5 edition if you like. I’m also planning a VDI book too – but I haven’t really decide if it should be VMware only or be a lot more vendor neutral. There’s of fragmentation around the virtual desktop space that make writing a book about a single vendors solution difficult. Whether that will be a McGraw-Hill book, a LULU book or ebook with TechTarget isn’t clear at the moment. It depends on its length and whether I want to go through the hell which is conventional print-media…

I would like to say a big hi-five to the folks at TechTarget. I’ve found the negotiations with them to be very easy – the folks over there seem easy to get along with to say the least. And it helped that my esteemed colleague – Brian Madden made a similar move while back. The very favorable comments he made about TechTarget made it easier decision to make.

Finally. As you know RTFM got started very early in the virtualization game. I became well-known really for those RTFM Guides that people download by the bucket load. Many of those folks now hold senior positions in VMware – which does my reputation no-end of good, and has opened up many doors. In recent years I experimented with paid-for-content in the shape of hard-copy books. My goal is to return to those early days where content could be delivered rapidly and efficiently. I almost did this with the vSphere4 book. I was a mouse-click away from giving all 600-pages of thing on the day of vSphere4 GA last year. Fortunately, my partner (Carmel) persuaded me out of this madness – and said look you must make some dough out of nearly 12 months of work. I does my reputation no harm what so ever be classed a “McGraw-Hill” author. I haven’t entirely turn my back on the books.

But for the new book I’m writing on VMware SRM 4.0 it will be FREE. Yes, totally Free. All 400-pages of the thing. It will be a free PDF downloadable from LULU, and if you want a hard-copy they will do a print-on-demand at cost. The reason I want to do this – is because firmly believe that what RTFM has given away for free in the last decade, has been repaid many times over in the respect accorded to me from community that I serve.

Gee, I must be a really nice guy.

Since the annoucement there’s been some really nice twitter responses from twitter-chums and fellow bloggers in the field. Thanks Guys…

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 6:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.