Dear TC6 members,
Please give your best attention to this message of Roger Johnson and send me your comments. It would be good that you send your comments with cc to TC6.
Best regards
Augusto
-----Original Message----- From: Dorothy Hayden [mailto:dh@ifip.or.at] Sent: quarta-feira, 21 de Maio de 2003 15:59 To: TC 1 Chair; TC 2 Acting-Chair; TC 3 Chair; TC 5 Chair; TC 6 Chair; TC 7 Chair; TC 8 Chair; TC 9 Chair; TC10 Chair; TC11 Chair; TC12 Chair; TC13 Chair Cc: Basie von Solms (E-mail); Roger Johnson; dh@ifip.or.at Subject: Fwd: Message from R. Johnson re. Publications
Dear All,
Please find below a message from the Secretary.
Kind regards, Dorothy
**************
Subject: Very Important - Publications Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 15:47:42 +0100 X-MS-Has-Attach: yes Thread-Topic: Very Important - Publications thread-index: AcMfeyIZLe44nvAYRmuRr3yOFVbh6g== From: "Roger Johnson" rgj@dcs.bbk.ac.uk To: dh@ifip.or.at Cc: "Basie von Solms (E-mail)" basie@rkw.rau.ac.za
Dear Colleagues
I have been asked to circulate this email quickly by the members of EB to get you reactions to the position in which IFIP finds itself. Please could you reply by the morning of Monday June 9th.
As I suggested (previously to EB) Springer has been acquired by Candover & Cinven and will be merged with KAP and will operate under the name of Springer. I attach the press release from the new owners.
It was widely rumoured that Springer was not making a profit and hence the wish by Bertelsmann to sell it. C&C are buyout specialists.I understand a number of KAP people are involved in the acquisition. My conclusion is that "new" Springer is much more likely to have policies similar to KAP and not the reverse since C&C have announced that their plan is to sell the company in 5-6 years.
The dilemma for IFIP is as follows:
- At the last re-tendering the only credible alternative was Springer.
That option has disappeared. 2. Last time ACM were only interested in handling the printing and distribution of books. No marketing with a consequent loss of IFIP visibility. All advertising (in ACM jouranls etc) at IFIP's expense. 3. IEEE-CS have expressed interest this time (last time they did not). ACM were certainly interested last year when Klaus and I visited in the possibility of providing a similar service. However, the deal may well be similar to (2) above. 4. Our analysis last time was that there would be very little income to IFIP from a deal with ACM and I believe that it would probably be true of IEEE-CS offering as well. 5. There is some reason to think that another automatic renewal of the KAP contract could be agreed with existing royalties and a separate new agreement on electronic distribution. Such a deal would preserve our present royalty income of USD 87K. As an incentive to accept such a deal (because it would save them time and money etc) KAP might be expected to offer IFIP only around 10% royalty if we go to tender.
I think there are three real options (and a fourth hope):
- Go out to tender and sign with national society such as IEEE-CS or ACM.
We would have cheap books, a loss of nearly 87K USD in the IFIP income to be recovered from elsewhere (I guess from conferences, is there anything else??). We would have to do all our own marketing. 2. Go out to tender and sign with KAP/Springer on reduced royalty. We would lose only 30-40K USD which would have to come be recovered as in option 1. 3. Allow KAP contract to renew with high book prices etc. but with continued income stream to IFIP. 4. Hope there is someone else out there when we go to tender. I regard this as most unlikely and probably no better than option 2 with all the hassle of changing publisher.
What should we do? I believe that we should put the above to the TC chairs and seek their input by the morning of Monday June 9th. Please send responses to me and copy them to Basie as Chairman of TA.
Good wishes
Roger <<Springer acquisition-merger.doc>>
Dr Roger Johnson Dean, Faculty of Social Science & Honorary Secretary, International Federation for Information Processing Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX UK. Telephone: (+44) 20 7631 6709 FAX: (+44) 20 7631 6727 URL: http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/%7Ergj College location: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?P2M?P=wc1e7hx&Z=1 IFIP: http://www.ifip.or.at/