Tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1982 – 40 years of MicroScope

1982 was a banner year. In film, ET smashed the box office, The Snowman attained instant Christmas classic status, and Blade Runner gave a more-plausible-than-most view of the future. In music, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran and Prince delivered seminal albums. And in publishing, September 23rd saw the first issue of MicroScope roll off the printing press. In the subsequent 40 years, in print and online, MicroScope has provided a vital guide to the tech channel – both for businesses, and for us PRs wanting to educate ourselves on how this essential part of the industry works.

Last month, some of the Spark team had the good fortune to attend MicroScope’s 40th birthday celebrations. It was a chance to meet MicroScope journalists past and present – including the likes of Simon Quicke, Mike Simons, Alex Scroxton, and Caroline Donnelly – and to reminisce while indulging in a lavish spread of cake and cheese. But as someone who joined the industry when MicroScope was celebrating its (REDACTED) anniversary, it was also a chance to ponder what’s changed in the channel – and what hasn’t – in the years that have passed since TIME named The Personal Computer its ‘person of the year’.

I.T. of the Tiger

Many different technologies have emerged since 1982, but to my mind the more interesting – and important – changes are how the channel, the media, and PR itself operate. The growth of the cloud means an accompanying growth in Managed Service Providers, with many vendors and resellers turning to offering X-as-a-Service. As PRs, we’ve had to understand and adapt to this change; showing how new cloud offerings can open up new revenue streams, or even whole lines of business, and making sure we can understand and communicate every new nuance.

For the media, the switch to online – which MicroScope made completely in 2011 – has transformed the way journalism has to operate. With the need to publish fresh articles every day, and often throughout the day, PRs have sensed an opportunity to support journalists. We need to be able to spot and share good stories, to put journalists in touch with clients and news that their readers have to know about, and have the knowledge and confidence to answer any questions quickly and accurately.

The channel remains as crucial as ever

I came away from the event certain that for all the changes, one thing remains the same: the channel is, and always will be, a critical part of the IT ecosystem. Vendors can create miraculous technologies, customers can develop ever-more inventive use cases, but it’s the channel that joins the two. This means whenever we’re creating stories and strategies for clients, we need to think about that channel message. How will this help resellers, distributors and MSPs? How will it benefit their customers? How will it help them do business better? In recent months this has led to Couchbase’s CEO briefing MicroScope editor Simon Quicke about the database-as-a-service opportunity, and an update on how Poly has seen channel evolve to meet the needs of the hybrid world.

It could be easy to take the channel for granted. But by taking the time to understand its intricacies and its place within the industry, PRs can make sure we’re building stories for our clients that will reach every audience they need to. It’s why I like pitching channel stories, and I hope I get an invite to celebrate MicroScope’s 50th birthday!