a soap opera storyline ends.(Editorial)(Brief article)

Byline: Bobby Pickering

A soap opera storyline ends

It's been a great privilege to have edited Information World Review for these past three years, and stirring times they have been. I've thoroughly enjoyed reporting on the many different strands of the soap opera that is the global information industry. In the STM market, Euro challengers like Springer and Wolters Kluwer have regrouped as Elsevier has sailed grandly on with its cash registers ringing.

The open access movement made an impact, but not as much as I expected. It will undoubtedly continue to be corrosive, as the rivals parry and thrust over the big pot of gold to be made from publicly funded research. Government committees have become involved and hearings have been held, in the US, UK and Europe -- all very exciting.

But that high political drama was entirely different to the bare commercial fist-fighting in the information management market where IBM, the Big Blue bruiser, is emerging triumphant over EMC Documentum and the amorphous mass of OpenText/Hummingbird/RedDot.