Cancelling Inc.com's service as a small business portal, the new parent company of the Boston-based online division of Inc. Magazine has let go of 37 of 53 workers, including the president.

Gruner and Jahr USA Publishing, a New York division of the giant German conglomerate Bertelsmann AG that bought Inc. and Inc.com for a reported $200 million last summer, has scaled back the online division's ambitious scope and scotched its plans for an initial public offering.

Instead, division president Robert LaPointe will exit along with 70 percent of the staff. While Inc.com will continue to have some tools for entrepreneurs and business startups, it will be scaled down and reformatted more as a companion to Inc. magazine.

The division had won recognition as an online resource for small business owners, ranked last year as the best of 18 business portals surveyed by Cahner's In-Stat Group.

But it had been losing money since its inception, and David Carey, newly appointed publisher of G+J USA's business information group, decided the losses had to be stopped.

Carey came last month from a 2-year stint as publisher of The New Yorker to oversee both Inc. and Fast Company, which G+J USA bought in a $490 million deal in December.

"I understand their decision," LaPointe said. "They're looking to support their two recent acquisitions and focus on the magazines as magazines. We've had a great ride here, and I have no regrets."

Fast Company's companion Web site has discussion boards, career help and other resources but is much more tightly tied to the magazine's content then the ambitious Inc.com was to Inc.

LaPointe said the new Inc.com site will retain its greater depth of content, as well as many of its community aspects, including extensive discussion areas, "guides" to answer reader questions and 16 channels of content about management disciplines.

"A lot of sites have struggled with the believe that you have to refresh content all the time to drive traffic," he said. "We didn't subscribe completely to that. Users of our marketing area, for example, don't come back every day. We provided fresh content at the top level, but we spent a lot of time developing an effective index of data as a research tool, and that will stay. Our learning curve was steep and we made lots of mistakes, but that was part of the fun."

LaPointe said he'd take a month or so off, then look for a CEO position where he can "find a new passion."

The company said all 37 laid off employees will receive severance packages.