After university, his first job was writing for the first computer magazine, Edmund C. Berkeley's Computers & Automation. In 1964, McGovern founded International Data Corporation (IDC), which produced a computer-industry database and published the newsletter EDP Industry & Market Report (based on "ADP Newsletter", published by The Diebold Group). After three years, the company was losing money and McGovern contemplated liquidating it, until in 1967 he hit on the idea of making the newsletter into a weekly newspaper, Computerworld. After failing to wrest control of "Computer and Automation" from his friend and mentor, Ed Berkeley, he subsequently started the magazine "PC World."