Heise Gruppe GmbH & Co. KG is a German

media conglomerate A media conglomerate, media company, media group, or media institution is a company that owns numerous companies involved in mass media enterprises, such as music, television, radio, publishing, motion pictures, video games, amusement parks, or ...

headquartered in

Hanover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

. It was founded in 1949 by Heinz Heise and is still

family-owned A family business is a commercial organization in which decision-making is influenced by multiple generations of a family, related by blood, marriage or adoption, who has both the ability to influence the vision of the business and the willingn ...

. Its core business is directory media as well as general-interest and specialist media from the fields of computer technology, information technology and network culture. Another focus of its business activities is portals for price and product comparisons.

History

In 1949, founded the publishing house named after him in

-Badenstedt. The company's first product was an address book for the town of Bünde, later joined by the telephone directory for Einbeck. Gradually, other cities and regions were added to the product range. In addition, Heise expanded the program to include non-fiction topics, such as manuals on law. By 1960, sales had risen to over one million marks. In 1972, Heinz Heise handed over the management of the company to his son . Under his leadership, a magazine for electronics and technology topics, was created. The first issue of the computer magazine

c't ''c't'' – (; ''Magazine for Computer Technology'') is a biweekly German computer magazine, published by the Heinz Heise, Heinz Heise publishing house of Hanover. file:Ct jubilaeum 30 turm.jpg, The 5.71 meter high tower from the 587 published ...

appeared in 1983, followed by the professional magazine iX in 1988. Both publications are still around today. Later, the IT sector was further expanded with the acquisition of the Heidelberg-based Dpunkt Verlag. After the fall of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (, ) was a guarded concrete Separation barrier, barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and the East Germany, German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany). Construction of the B ...

, Heise expanded into the states of the former

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

. In 1992, the company took over the long-established publishing house in Rostock. Having previously invested in regional radio stations, Heise participated in the founding of , a private radio station in Lower Saxony, in year 2000. Additionally, Heise invested in digital business models with partner publishers: and appeared online for the first time. The news portal ''heise.de'' was created and supplemented by

Telepolis ''Telepolis'' is a German Internet magazine, published by the Heinz Heise Verlag since the beginning of 1996. It was founded by journalists Armin Medosch and Florian Rötzer and deals with privacy, science, culture, internet-related and g ...

and other channels. The MIT magazine

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

, whose German-language version has been published by Heise since 2003, was widely recognized. In recent years, price comparison portals have taken on greater importance at Heise. The company has stakes in ''billiger.de'', ''guenstiger.de'' and '' geizhals.at''.

Publications

Heise publishes ''Das Örtliche'' and ''Das Telefonbuch'' as well as the Gelbe Seiten in joint editorial and publishing partnership with Deutsche Tele Medien. The media are published in printed form, as a web application and for mobile devices. In addition to a simple entry, Heise offers small and medium-sized companies a wide range of

online marketing Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising that uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...

services. The IT news portal ''heise.de'' is leading in German-speaking countries. It also includes the media brands c't, iX, Make, Mac & i, Technology Review, heise Autos, TechStage and Telepolis. The company uses the brands both online and for magazines, as well as for events, especially congresses, conferences, seminars and workshops, including ''Heise Adacemy''.

Notes and references

External links

* {{Authority control Companies established in 1949 Companies based in Hanover Mass media in Hanover Publishing companies of Germany