Dear Augusto, Dear Otto

I fully agree with Otto analysis of the situation.

Samir

Samir TOHME Professeur Departement Informatique et Reseaux Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications 46 Rue Barrault. 75634 Paris Cedex 13. France. Tel : 33 1 45 81 78 61 Fax : 33 1 45 81 31 19 Email : tohme@inf.enst.fr

On Fri, 30 May 2003, Otto Spaniol wrote:

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

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We do not know the motivations of Kluwer to get the control of Springer. I see several ones not mutually exclusive - Growing its revenue by acquisition - getting access to the expertise of Springer in the digital library business - reducing the management operational costs by the merging and the usual reorganisation (-15% of people).

I doubt that Kluwer will discontinue the succesful series from Springer.

I just wonder if the best solution for IFIP would not be to have a non exclusive contract with both publishersor more precisely with Kluwer and with the Springer LNCS serie. Some organisers still prefer Kluwer books. Some others prefer Springer. Why not make everybody happy by consolidating at IFIP level, the real actual situation of TC6.

If the digital libray exists in Springer, it will be surprising for me that an arrangement with Kluwer will not be possible to have the Kluwer IFIP books integrated in the DL.

Best regards

Andre

Otto Spaniol wrote:

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

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