Reed Elsevier could be an online-only publisher within a decade, the chief executive, Sir Crispin Davis, predicted yesterday, as heavy investment in web-based publishing fuels the company's growth....Sir Crispin said Reed's future growth would be driven by online publishing. Already 40% of subscriptions to its science and healthcare journals are online-only, while the internet accounts for a third of British business publishing revenues....Sir Crispin predicted online revenues could surpass print by 2008, delivering better margins and higher sales volumes. Within 10 years, he said: "You could see Reed almost as an entirely online business." Analysts said Reed was reaping the benefits of its heavy investment in online publishing. "They're delivering rates of growth now that big competitors are looking to do in a few years," Lorna Tilbian, a Numis Securities analyst, said. "The number one publisher is also the fastest growing."...Sir Crispin said the threat to Reed's Elsevier science and healthcare division from open-access journals had failed to materialise, with such journals accounting for less than 1% of publications in the sector.
Comment. "Had failed to materialize" is the wrong tense and wrong perspective. The Reed numbers are growing. The OA numbers are growing too. It's true that the OA numbers are currently small, but that is no sign of failure, no sign that the trajectory is down instead of up, and no sign that the opportunity for OA has somehow passed. Imagine a typewriter manufacturer in 1981 or 1982 saying, "Personal computers had failed to materialize." If Davis' theory is that the early small numbers will remain small, then it's wishful thinking. If he's too smart for that elementary mistake, then it's spin.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/29/2005 07:48:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
