Jasperak
Adventurer
They gave the magazine licenses to Paizo, and that worked out well for them. With the launch of 4E, they wanted to bring those in house and online - and that, too, has worked out well for them.
Did it work out well for them? Since WOTC gave the licenses to Paizo they lost $10-15 per month from me. Paizo gained that money and built up their brand and grew what I would presume to be a profitable business. Just on the magazines that WOTC didn't want in-house anymore. WOTC didn't re-earn my business when they brought the magazines back in-house.
I wonder on the grand scale if WOTC makes more profit on Dragon and Dungeon now than Paizo did when they were the stewards. I guess if there were people that signed up for their online subscription service only for their RPG articles and not edition specific applications (Character/Monster Builder), then you could say that Dragon and Dungeon are successes for them.
/tangent