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/
Dear Augusto and everyone,
[Just some shorts comments at this stage]
Subject: Very Important - Publications Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 15:47:42 +0100 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.
Can we expect that the "new" Springer (i.e. KAP/Springer) will preserve publications like LNCS and the LINK digital library (possibly merged with the KAP digital library, yes there is one where some KAP journals are published)?
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.
Advertisement is a side issue for me. If our papers are in a good DL (or a good series), we should not care too much about advertizing books. For example, the IFIP Springer books have no specific advertisement, I guess. They benefit from the popularity of the LNCS series.
Would ACM also accept IFIP proceedings in their DL? If not, just forget it. If yes, perhaps IFIP could get some revenue from ACM. The idea being: IFIP brings new proceedings in the ACM DL, making it more attractive.
- 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.
Same comment.
- 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.
Does this analysis take into account the possibility of electronic publication in their DL.
- 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.
The percentage is not what really matters. What matters for printed books is the product "percentage x number of books sold". For example, with Springer LNCS, IFIP already gets less royalties today for many of our events, but Springer sells more LNCS books than KAP.
I understand that the 'automatic renewal' may well be the most profitable solution for IFIP. However, this is the wrong way of looking at the problem, as this is the mistake IFIP made a few years ago when choosing KAP (and that we try to escape painfully now).
Basically, IFIP's business model where 1/3 of its revenue is based on royalties may have to be reviewed seriously anyway. I don't think it is a viable business model in the long run.
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.
Without answers to the questions above and without knowing the bids, it is difficult to decide.
- 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.
Is Elsevier completely out of the game?
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
Best regards, Guy
<<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/
Annexe convertie: Macintosh HD:Springer acquisition-merger.doc (WDBN/MSWD) (00051092) _______________________________________________ ifip-tc6 mailing list ifip-tc6@lists.RWTH-Aachen.DE http://MailMan.RWTH-Aachen.DE/mailman/listinfo/ifip-tc6
________________________________________________________________________ Prof. Guy Leduc Tel : +32 4 366 26 98 Université de Liège Secr : +32 4 366 26 91 Réseaux Informatiques Fax : +32 4 366 29 89 Research Unit in Networking (RUN) Guy.Leduc@ulg.ac.be EECS Department, Institut Montefiore, B 28, B-4000 LIEGE 1, BELGIUM http://www.run.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/People/GuyLeduc/
-
Augusto Casaca -
Guy Leduc