Dear all,
Please send me your views on the mail sent by Roger Johnson on the different possibilities for the choice of a new IFIP publisher. I sent you that mail last week and I need to know your opinion up to this coming Monday.
It appears to me that we cannot play any more with one publisher against the other (e.g. Springer against Kluwer) since Springer will be merged with Kluwer. Things will be even more difficult since the new company will be forced to make profit (and giving good conditions to IFIP will not increase their profitability).
IEEE-CS or ACM is not my favourite solution due to the missing marketing and advertising perspectives.
If IFIP goes to tender then Kluwer might be the only one who makes a bid and who could dictate the contract (it was already indicated that in such a situation the royalty offer would be reduced - and it is unclear how the contract might be improved as a compensation for that). A possible tender would probably not bring a new serious candidate. Moreover, it is far from being certain that such a new candidate would not be obliged to merge with Kluwer in the next years - and then we would be in the same situation as before. Lastly, a change of publisher is very problematic for the visibility and for the corporate identity of IFIP.
[It appears that Elsevier - who is still the biggest publisher - is not any more interested in having a new contract with IFIP].
In that situation I would recommend to renew the Kluwer contract with existing royalties and (important!) a separate new agreement on electronic distribution.
Best regards Otto