Dear all,
as you know we organise more and more events together with ACM, IEEE and others.
In addition to the publication and the copyright problems (book prices, royalties,..) we will probably in another type of difficulties.
This problem just arised with MIDDLEWARE'04 (for which we have paid 3.000 EURO for student travel grant etc.).
MIDDLEWARE'04 has been organised together with ACM. In the event request form, the conference promised a sponsorship fee of 3.750 EURO for IFIP and was reminded for that sum by IFIP secretariat.
The conference organisors said that the event made a loss which was covered by ACM. Now if they would pay the sponsorship fee to IFIP then ACM would have to pay even more, and this would be unacceptable. Then a lengthy communication with ACM was established and - believe it or not - ACM was generous enough to pay the fee to IFIP but they refused to make similar arrangements for the future. We have to say that at this moment in time we already have at least for MIDDLEWARE'05 a similar ERF which "guarantees" to IFIP 4.500 EURO.
The message from ACM to IFIP's secretariat reads as follows: -------- Thank you for your fax. I will have the service fee wired to your bank account. For future events with ACM or the ACM SIGs only Patricia M. Ryan, ACM COO has the authority to execute joint sponsorship agreements such as this. Conference Chairs are not authorized to sign these agreements on behalf of ACM. I will forward you a formal letter indicating that for your files. Please let me know if there are any other outstanding sponsorship agreements between ACM and IFIP at this time. --------
This is probably what we call in Germany (and maybe in other countries, too) a "Pyrrhic victory", i.e. like the victory of Pyrrhus in Apulum over the Romans in 279 B.C. (which was indeed rather a defeat than a victory).
We will have a lot of strategic things to discuss in Wroclaw.
Best regards Otto