How PCQ became a Market Maker

It was a hot and sunny day in the summer of '95.

- PRASANTO K ROY

PRASANTO K ROY

MD, FTI Consulting Former Editor, PCQuest & Former President & Chief Editor, Cyber Media

A colleague and I had stopped by for a quick chicken-rice lunch at a busy spot in 'Asia's largest IT marketplace', Nehru Place. The cheap-and-cheerful place also served rajma-chawal and boasted three tiny but tall round plastic 'dining tables to share with strangers - standing only, no chairs.

Our table companion had several cardboard boxes with him, and, I was happy to see, two copies of PC Quest. It was our first issue that carried a CDROM on the cover, the first magazine in Asia to do so. I was curious: why two, and what would he do with the CD, which had the entire IBM OS/2 operating system? We got talking. He was delighted to know I was the editor of PC Quest. He was an IT dealer, with a shop in the next building-and he was suddenly flooded with orders for CD-ROM drives, five of them just that day. He insisted we visit his shop. We had had some very sweet and milky tea there.

From driving modem sales to CD drives to UPSS and Linux, this monthly magazine, its CD-ROMs, and its test lab changed India's tech market.