A new partnership for OpenTranslators

OpenTranslators have been the subject of much attention and much discussion since the product announcement at ALA Mid-Winter. Much of the attention focused on what is the definition of open? The recent blog post at Hangingtogether.org and at Lorcan Dempsey’s weblog have been particularly thoughtful and fair in their analysis of the discussion.

With the announcement last week that SerialsSolutions and WebFeat were merging, there was new discussion and speculation about OpenTranslators, the joint product offering of CARE Affiliates, Index Data and Webfeat (now SerialsSolutions).

Many people have contacted us to ask what we think of the merger and what we thought the result would be on our joint product offering.

First, we think it is important to say that we were called by SerialsSolutions administration before the announcement was released both to let us know what was happening and to assure us of the continued interest in the partnership and success of the OpenTranslators product. This has been confirmed in writing at the SerialsSolutions website where the FAQ document specifically states, in part: “The OpenTranslators project is a quasi-open source collection of translators, distributed by CARE Affiliates and Index Data. This project provides a layer that allows applications to access the library of WebFeat translators. The translators are neither open source nor free, but the access layer is open source. We plan to continue supporting this project and helping it grow.” So, we believe that based on all of this, the intent is there and we will continue to be able to offer and grow this product under this new partnership.

At a more personal level, we want to note that we’ve long worked with both Todd Miller, the CEO of WebFeat (and well before he founded WebFeat) and Jane Burke, the Vice President and General Manager of SerialsSolutions (and again, we’ve known Jane since back in her CLSI days). These are two people who are fearsome competitors and savvy, sharp business people. We have a great deal of admiration for the skills of each and we congratulate them both on this transaction. It is truly a win-win for everyone, including the new joint customer base of the soon to be merged operation. We’re pleased to be partners with them.

As for the larger market changes that might result from this merger, we can only speculate. But, if we look at the history of the people and companies involved, there are some things that should likely be expected, including:

1. As a merged operation, they will have a large customer base. When that is coupled with an innovative company run by leading-edge thinkers and management, there is power to transform marketplaces and to bring attention to those transformations.

2. WebFeat and SerialsSolutions both know and understand libraries and the finances that run them. Both companies were focused on offering affordable prices, high levels of functionality and highly scalable solutions. This merger underscores the likelihood that will continue. Speculation that this consolidation reduces competition and the likelihood for price increases ignores this history and the reality that there is still plenty of competition out there.

Some of the more interesting areas to watch will be:

1. Cambridge Information Group, the parent company of ProQuest and SerialsSolutions, is clearly going to continue its acquisitions. While they’ve stayed away from some of the more traditional automation products like the ILS, they’re clearly focusing on digital library tools. I’ve no doubt we’ll continue to see them add to their suite of holdings and, as they do, the integration of the products/services to offer an even more complete digital library solution the likes of which we can only speculate.

2. Will SerialsSolutions succumb to the temptation to make their growing suite of middleware less than vendor neutral when it comes to the content upon which that middleware is operating? When you own the content (and there is quite a bit within the CIG holding companies!) and the middleware, it will be hard to resist the temptation to do so. But again, these are savvy, smart leaders at work here and they know librarians would likely express concern if that happened. Would it stop them from buying? That would probably be highly dependent upon how well content and middleware are integrated and what advantages it offers and to what degree, if any, it specifically excluded other content. Of course, the other question that needs to be asked is: Would librarians even be the likely targets of these kinds of new integrated product offerings? There’s a question deserving a whole separate post!

Bottom line, we see this new merger as a positive development for all concerned and all the surviving products. We look forward to seeing what the leadership of CIG and its holding companies do now and we look forward to seeing where Todd Miller emerges next and with whatever new and likely amazing product he’ll develop.