Friday, June 3, 2016

Arrow Electronics Makes Big Move Into Publishing, Buys EETimes, EDN

Centennial, Colorado-based electronics distributor Arrow Electronics made another interesting move into the publishing space on Friday morning, saying that it has acquired industry publications EE Times, EDN, ESM, Embedded, EBN, TechONline, and Datasheets.com from publisher UBM. Financial details of the acquisition were not announced. According to Arrow, the deal includes UBM's technical and electronics media portfolio, which provides news and analysis of various electronics related industries. The move is actually the second for Arrow Electronics, which acquired the United Technical Publishing arm of Hearst Media last year. It's unclear how the move will affect coverage in the various trade publications, however, Arrow said it has "always been the trusted advisor for companies" who are integrating electronics into their products and applications. Some of the UBM publications, such as Electronic Design News (EDN), have extremely cozy with vendors; others, like EETimes, tended to be more independent of manufacturers, with unbiased and sometimes critical articles on vendors.