Pearson made an interesting acquisition yesterday. Their acquisition of eCollege continues their corporate foray into Student Information Systems and Course Management. Last year, Pearson acquired PowerSchool and Chancery Software yielding a very strong position in Student Information Systems for the K-12 market. Clearly, they like these learning infrastructure markets for several good reasons.
1. At present, they seem to be solid businesses with only a few competitors that are poised to grow at rates exceeding their traditional textbook businesses.
2. The acquired customer base brings them many new customers and brings them closer to the students (and parents) who use their instructional products. The information about these students and the ability to reach them with additional product offerings is not to be underestimated in this digital world.
3. As the range of course materials such as content modules, learning software, simulations, educational websites, etc. continues to grow, the value of the course infrastructure technology will increase as well as provide a strategic advantage for integration with their broad range of course materials.
Last week at the Digital Book conference in New York, several speakers agreed that college textbook publishers will look more and more like software publishers over the next ten years. The reasons for this transition will center on using technology to: 1. deliver appropriate content to the student when it is needed to solve homework problems and prepare for tests; 2. integrate traditional material with innovative simulations and learning modules available from communities like MERLOT; 3. add life to static published content by enabling further exploration via web links and domain specific search engines and content repositories.
Pearson is wise to acquire successful software and technology companies to give them the pockets of technical expertise that would take many years to develop within the company. While there may be some culture clashes, this strategy should serve Pearson well and position them to maintain or expand their leadership position in educational publishing.
Category: Publishing & media (Page 40 of 53)
Well, Thomson Learning has finally been sold (subject to rote “due diligence”) to private equity firms. Everyone figured it would be private equity firms that would make the purchase, partly because these firms are buying just about everything these days except your old underwear, and also because the higher education textbook market is so concentrated that even George Bush’s “I’ve never seen a merger I didn’t like” administration would have had trouble fobbing this one off. Too many children would have been left behind.
The big surprise was the price. A whopping $7.75 billion, over 3 times the annual sales of the division, and apparently roughly 15 times cash flow (see . The same article points out that “by comparison, the average cash flow multiple paid in leveraged buyouts of $500 million or more last year was around eight times cash flow, with media deals typically in the low-double digits, according to buyout industry statistics.” The price is also some 50% more than company officials originally stated they thought they could fob the division off for.
Would we say there’s a little too much cash out there looking for comfy homes? Or would we wonder why this Thomson division, much maligned by management when the sale was first announced, is suddenly as valuable as DaimlerChrysler? (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/automobiles/15chrysler-web.html)
I guess we’re stuck with Thomson’s overriding stated view that higher education just wasn’t getting with the program fast enough in an online, electronic sort of way, and so the division had to be jettisoned. (Although Thomson CEO Richard J. Harrington admitted after the sale announcement that the company had no complaints about the educational unit’s financial performance. Textbooks are, by and large, a high-margin product ).
On the other hand, memory serves to remind us that Thomson was previously determined in a fierce way to get the heck out of the news business, and now it’s about to merge with Reuters.
What I’m most cognizant of is that Thomson shares had been languishing in the mid-$30s for years before the announcement of the bold move to get rid of textbooks. Now those shares are in the $40s. A lot of senior Thomson executives have made a whole lot of cash from these recent maneuvers (not to mention the Thomson family). No senior Thomson executive was left behind (as for the the operating staff; it is not polite to ask).
(To glimpse the stock chart:
SiberLogic announced the integration of SiberSafe DITA Edition with Adobe’s FrameMaker 7.2 Application Pack for DITA. With the Application Pack configured, SiberSafe automatically adjusts its integrated menu options to deliver sophisticated DITA content management from within the familiar FrameMaker environment. FrameMaker users can open a document and retrieve topic-based content along with associated dependencies such as xref targets, link targets, conref targets, and referenced images. Content reuse is streamlined and straightforward via SiberSafe’s support for content references (conrefs). And SiberLogic’s functionality is available directly from the FrameMaker menu: authoring and review assignments are automatically distributed via workflow email; each contributor has a list of tasks and knows how and when to execute them; and managers can keep track of progress and resource allocation. With additional features such as collaborative review, task analysis, and translation management, the FrameMaker/SiberSafe DITA integration aims to reduce the complexity of DITA-based technical documentation processes to a single integrated platform. http://www.siberlogic.com/framemaker/
Squarespace, a subscription-based solution for managing websites and blogs together in the same platform, has released version 4.0 of its publishing software. Along with improvements to site architecture and enhancements to bandwidth and storage, five features have been added to provide users with more options for creating a professional and dynamic web presence. Bloggers will have access to a search function that operates across all of a website’s content types, including blog posts, discussion forums, FAQs, photo galleries and standard webpages. Squarespace search can also operate on protected areas of a site and index content as soon as it is published. Users can create online forms, allowing users to address the difficult problem of capturing and analyzing data from their customer base. Website owners can use Squarespace’s new FAQ component. Publish questions and answers in a search engine friendly format that is as easy to manage as a blog post. Webmasters and bloggers alike are now able to host a discussion forum within Squarespace just as they would a photo gallery or guestbook. Users can add Google Maps to their site and highlight the location of offices, meetups or other events for their readers. Hosting packages range from $7 to $65 per month, and are available for individuals or businesses. Enterprise users can also take advantage of Squarespace’s customized support and bandwidth plans for $175 per month. http://www.squarespace.com
Informative Graphics Corporation (IGC) announced the latest release of its Java version of the Brava! product line, Brava Enterprise 5.2J. Version 5.2J is the next step in IGC’s secure, Java-based viewing technology, bringing features like thumbnail views, term-hit highlighting, redaction, markup consolidation and the ability to output to PDF to the client/server viewer. Brava Enterprise brings unified view and annotation capabilities to a large number of users inside and outside the firewall. Brava! Enterprise integrates into existing systems, honoring user rights, leveraging metadata and managing annotations. Brava Enterprise is integrated with content management systems like EMC Documentum and Open Text Livelink ECM, Interwoven WorkSite MP and Microsoft SharePoint, and project management systems like Primavera Expedition and Meridian Project Systems, as well as many commercial collaboration web sites. http://www.bravaviewer.com, http://www.infograph.com
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Scene7, a technology provider of real-time rich media delivery services. Adobe plans to offer and expand these interactive publishing services as it extends the online presence of its creative technologies. Most of Scene7’s employees are expected to join Adobe, with chief executive officer Doug Mack taking the position of vice president, Creative Solutions Services at Adobe. Scene7 is based in Novato, California. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close by the end of May 2007. The addition of Scene7 is not expected to have a material impact to Adobe revenue and earnings in fiscal year 2007. Terms were not disclosed. http://www.adobe.com/go/scene7_faq/
When I was much younger, I lived in Upstate NY and was vexed by a certain Gannet Newspaper whose news wasn’t particularly current. I always said that their motto should be “the news in retrospect”.
Now I do some writing in the form of this blog and am embarrassed to admit that my report on the recent Gilbane Conference in SanFrancisco would be covered by the same motto. Age makes us humbler with every passing year.
I was very pleased with the quality of presentations in this year’s Publishing Track. In his recent post, Thad McIlroy was much too modest in his depiction of his impressive Future of Publishing Website. The result of almost 10 years of hard work, the site is a fascinating compendium of past and current views of the future of publishing. It is impressive in its scope, organization, and innate wisdom. We were honored to have it released to the public at our conference.
Thad did his usual outstanding job in leading a panel that gave a crisp and concise view of what is possible today in the world of publishing automation. As publishers, Thomson and O’Reilly distinguished themselves with the processes they are using today and products that resulted from those processes. Their willingness to completely rethink their strategies and re-engineer their processes should prove an inspiration to other publishers.
As you can see from my previous post on We are Smarter than Me, I am very interested in activities at the intersection of communities and publishing entities. Our Panel with representatives of San Diego Union Tribune, MERLOT, and Leverage Software gave vivid examples and insights as to how communities can develop valuable new information or enhance traditional information products. Their talks further fueled my curiosity and thinking on this topic.
Bill Rosenblatt led a great Panel of representatives from Adobe, Mark Logic, Marcinko Enterprises, and Quark through an excellent discussion of how today’s technology can enable publishers to design and implement processes that support true cross media publishing. And then Bill shared the lessons that were learned in an innovative cross-media strategy project that he did with Consumer’s Union. He was joined by Randy Marcinko who cited several clear examples of how the proper processes support cross media publishing and By Chip Pettibone Safari U’s Vice President of Product Development who dazzled the audiance with some of Their new products and business models . Their Rough Cuts and Short Cuts product lines are particularly impressive!
Finally Thad’s posting speaks glowingly of the panel for the International Publishing panel. I concur!!
Thanks to all conference panelists and attendees!! Please send me any comments and critiques that would make the next conference more valuable to you.
There has been much speculation and lots of quick judgments on the Negroponte laptop project. I’ve found all of the articles and blogs I’ve seen to be so devoid of factual matter, while so packed with unsubstantiated opinion, that I’ve found it impossible to form any kind of judgment of my own on the topic.
Obviously addressing the huge problem of literacy in the third-world is essential to a bright future for publishing. Will this be part of the solution?
Read a truly excellent article here:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/apr07/4985
It’s that rara avis — an article full of both technical, social and political insight, and extremely balanced in presenting its ideas and information. Fascinating and provocative.
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