Springer and Macmillan merger : some observations - WoW! Wouter on the Web

"The proposed merger between Springer and Macmillan came as a surprise to me. They are two big brands that come together. However if you look purely at figures in number of journals Macmillan is a midget compared to Springer and combined they are probably slightly bigger than Elsevier. It is the brand of Nature and Nature Publishing group that might shine on Springer and its journals if this merger is managed well. Imagine a cascading peer review system for turned down articles from Nature to the complete Springer portfolio rather than the NPG journals only. That would give those Springer journals an enormous boost. In number of journals this merger will probably not be stopped by the anti-cartel watchdogs. What has not been mentioned in most press releases is the fact that this deal will for sure create the most profitable Open Access publisher in the world. Springer already acquired BioMed Central some years ago, and is expanding ferociously its own Springer Open brand and platform. Macmillan’s Nature Publishing Group acquired the Swiss Frontiers early 2013 http://www.nature.com/press_releases/npgfrontiers.html Frontiers showed a healthy growth from 2,500 article in 2006 to 11,000 in 2014. The combined numbers of Open Access articles published by Springer Open, BioMed Central, Frontiers and the Nature Open Access journals (Nature Communications, Nature Reports) is still not topping that of Public Library of Science (PLoS) ..."