Print Is Toast - Ballmer

by: Erick Schonfeld June 06, 2008 | about stocks: BLC / GCI / JRC / JRN / LEE / MEG / MNI / MSFT / NWS / NYT / SSP / WPO    

Erick Schonfeld

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Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer sat down for lunch with editors and reporters at the Washington Post and told them print will be dead in ten years:

There will be no media consumption left in ten years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.

I just hope the Post’s Website will still be around because it is a great distribution partner for TechCrunch.

But seriously, we’ve heard these predictions before. And it is easy to make them again with the print media industry suffering a major contraction as advertising dollars flee elsewhere. Just earlier this week, I was on a media panel at NYU where Vanity Fair media columnist and Newser founder Michael Wolff told Newsweek editor Johnnie Roberts: “If Newsweek is around in five years, I’ll buy you dinner.”

It’s a good line, and in general Wolff was pretty much the only person I agreed with on the panel. Still, I am not so sure print is ever going away. Paper is a more enduring technology than Ballmer or Wolff would have you believe. What is endangered is the current set of business models that produce print media. If the those businesses go away, obviously so do their products. But that presumes that new print businesses won’t emerge to take their place. Maybe they won’t be as profitable and maybe they won’t have as broad a reach, but as long as there is demand for books, newspapers, or magazines somebody will figure out a way to fill it.

(You can watch more videos from Ballmer’s lunch here)

Will Print Media Still Be Around In Ten Years?
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This article has 6 comments:

  •  
    Jun 06 03:50 PM
    Steve Ballmer should be more concerned than the newspaper publishers; it follows, will Microsoft still be around in ten years because if all newspaper are not printed on paper; as a result, the electronic delivery of newspapers will be delivered to client presentation handheld devices that do not need Microsoft products technologies for these document deliveries. So goes the paper publishing industry, so goes Microsoft computer products, and here comes new client handheld rendering devices that can present news and magazines in a client presentation user-friendly document navigation format.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Jun 06 03:57 PM
    bigger concern is who is going to pay to gather all that news? The AP? It's paid for by the newspapers!
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Jun 06 04:11 PM
    Who is going to pay for news? You might have noted that the AmazonKindle reader is presently testing providing a subscription or single copy sales for newspapers and magazines; as a result, the subscriber pays a cost and the publishers are beginning to publish for Kindle rendering. I think that will time, experience, and Kindle device customer feedback; as a result, the magazine and newspaper publishers will improve their delivery of client presentation content, and if it is done well subscribers will pay. But, here-again Microsoft is out-of-the news and magazine delivery services loop right now.
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  •  
    Jun 06 04:32 PM
    ...and if Ballmer didn't own so much stock, he would be too.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Jun 06 06:44 PM
    The death of paper is tied to it's customers.

    My 70 year old mom will never trade the "paper" for a computer.

    I sometimes read a paper, but rarely pay for it.

    Will my 8 year old pay for printed news in 20 years? I doubt it...

    So as the "paper" generation dies so will printed news.

    News won't die though, just how it's delivered...
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Jun 07 11:39 AM
    Look at the issues in their distinct parts:

    Ballmer was addressing the DELIVERY modalities.

    Internet content delivery will still be supported by printers, which are likely to become more sophisticated.

    Oral transmissions (unless captured on other media) are of transient value or impact on cognition, but function well with the objectives of commercial advertising; whilst the latter is often disruptive in the other formats.

    Demand for news and information content will continue, but the BUSINESS MODELS for its production (like that for visual media elsewhere) will have to change and adapt.

    Reply | Link to Comment
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