Greetings from Shanghai, one of numerous centers of an emerging microwave industry within China. Not unlike the microwave industries in Europe and the United States with their pockets of microwave activity spread out across a vast geographical space, developing microwave technology in China is occurring in Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, Beijing, and Nanjing, just to name a few. Domestic and foreign companies doing business across this broad region will have a challenging time having the necessary presence in the major locations within China where rewarding opportunities exist. Likewise, the typical microwave engineer in China is experiencing the challenge of following technical developments from within their own country and across the globe.
To their credit, many international companies doing business here have set up shop in multiple microwave hotspot cities to address this need. These same companies along with other smaller ones, regularly conduct traveling "road shows" to bring education of their products and technology directly to potential customers. Clearly this is an expensive, yet necessary venture if this market is to align with the state of the art in microwave technology globally. And understanding the state of the art is essential to this market's growth. And so once again, information drives progress and content is king
A necessary and complementary component to this educational process is to have a trade industry source of information that is dedicated to the development of microwave technology and its applications. I believe this is the principle need driving the interest in a Microwave Journal China magazine. Our trade magazine has evolved with the industry from its earliest days and we have witnessed the worldwide spread of microwave-related business and the technology that supports it. And in turn, the Journal has become synonymous with the microwave industry beyond our wildest hopes.
This is my second trip to Shanghai for the Microwave Journal to attend the 6th International Conference and Exhibition on Microwave and Antennas (IME) - the largest dedicated microwave trade show in this country. I am impressed by the activity here, the representation of both Chinese microwave companies and well-known American and European ones, and the interest among the attendees. I am also extremely pleased by the reception Microwave Journal gets from attendees and the frequency with which people tell us that we are already well-known in this country. I couldn’t be more pleased to be "very famous in China." It will greatly help our efforts to bring our editorial formula for success to this new audience.
Microwave Journal began targeting a presence in the China market back in 2008 with a pilot website and first visit to the IME show. We developed a modest website with translated MWJ content and planned to develop our electronic media products with a possible print product waiting in the wings. When the global recession hit, we put these plans on hold, which turned out to be a fortuitous decision. In 2008, we believed the Internet was the better way to deliver our content. Now in 2011, we have a new understanding of how unique and valuable a print offering is to the typical Chinese engineer. The complexity of our technology and how its latest advances are conveyed through words is difficult to consume online in HTML format. Granted, the web is a necessary tool for finding content. But print (or even tablets) is still the preferred method for reading about complex engineering topics. So with the world economy looking at potential growth in Chinese markets, we are renewing this effort, albeit with a different emphasis – the launch of our MWJ China print magazine.
Our editorial goals are simple. We will provide the same high quality, peer reviewed content to this new audience. It will reflect the latest technology from the global industry at large. This content will be combined with exclusive editorial pertaining to China. We will cover the local microwave-related news, i.e. upcoming events, office openings, product releases, rep appointments that take place in China. We will also pursue special reports from China about technology and business occurring here. I am pleased to welcome Katie Huang as our new Microwave Journal China editor. Katie was previously with Global Sources and joins us from her office in Beijing.
Microwave Journal China will be published on a bi-monthly basis in 2012, starting with our premier issue in January. The editorial themes each month will loosely mirror our English-version where it is appropriate. We will diverge from the English version editorial calendar for months where the topic is less centric to this audience (such as the May MTT-S IMS issue and the September European Microwave Week Issue). Our 2012 Microwave Journal China editorial calendar will be published shortly and available on this site.
To commemorate the launch of MWJ China, we have produced a 24-page introduction to MWJ China along with a preview of our first issue and plans for 2012 that we are distributing at this IME show. This preview appears in simplified Chinese and helped future subscribers and advertisers get a taste for this new version of Microwave Journal. The reaction from IME attendees to the news and the preview edition has been very encouraging. We have a number of companies lined up to provide editorial for the first few issues. I have also received numerous new product announcements translated into simplified Chinese.
For those of you interested in appearing in a future issue of MWJ China, please feel free to contact me at Dvye@mwjournal.com, Pat Hindle (Phindle@mwjournal.com) or Richard Mumford (Rmumford@mwjournal.com).