EarthWeb Inc. said Tuesday it is selling some of its content businesses to Internet.com Corp. to focus solely on IT careers issues.
The deal includes the New York-based company’s Earthweb.com site as well as Developer.com, Datamation.com, OpenSourceIT.com and Javascripts.com.
EarthWeb says it plans to license back some content from the assets being sold to Internet.com.
EarthWeb plans to close offices in Boston, San Francisco and Boulder, Colo., but will continue operating its New York headquarters as well as offices in Des Moines, Iowa and Atlanta. Forty-six employees of the sites being sold have been offered jobs with Internet.com, while the rest – EarthWeb did not say how many – are being given severance packages.
EarthWeb will now focus on IT recruiting and certification preparation, president and CEO Jack Hidary said in a news conference broadcast on the company’s Web site. Those businesses represent about 73 per cent of the company’s total revenues in the current quarter, Hidary said.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. EarthWeb did say it will record a charge of between US$42 million and $47 million in the quarter ending Dec. 21 from the deal, including a loss of goodwill and other intangible assets, write-down of equipment, obligations of office leases being vacated and severance pay.
