New support for EE magazines?

This morning's announcement of Reed Business selling it's electronic industry pubs to Canon Communications could be a big benefit to the old line titles like EDN.  Canon pub editors, like Sherrie Conroy of Medical Electronics Manufacturing are fairly savvy about social media and can give support to people like Brian Dipert, possibly moving the publications closer to what they should be.  

The downside might be that further consolidation of the staff could be in the offing along with a redirection of the editorial focus to manufacturing and less to design.  Why? Because it's the manufacturing industry that's putting money into old media right now, not design.

Canon has no ties to the semiconductor/electronics system industry outside of medical devices, so the sales staff and management aren't going to put up with the cost-cutting shenanigans that have undercut magazines and print over the past decade.  At the same time, however, the industries Canon reaches are exactly the kind of accounts EDA and semiconductors want to be in.  The investors are there, too.

This could be some of the best news for EE pubs in a long time.