Adobe announced at its AdobeMax conference on Monday, October 5 that it will add support to its Flash Professional CS5 developer kit to convert software written in Flash to standalone iPhone apps. Earlier in the day they announced that Flash 10.1 would be available on just about every single mobile hardware platform out there. Blackberries, Android phones, Symbian Phones, Palm Pres and Windows Mobile.
Announcement WIRED Announcement ComputerWorld Article
Example Flash apps that made it through the iPhone conversion process (8 so far)
Flash apps WIRED would like to see on the iPhone
Someday we will all have cell phones that don’t require adapters for recharging the battery. Here’s a prototype at Nokia that uses ambient radio waves: Read more
This article published on Boston.com received the most commentary by former employees, freelancers, and other fans of the publishing industry sorry to see the state of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It’s a shame to see the once thriving independent publisher in such a bleak outlook.
Published on February 1, 2009 and authored by David Mehegan.
It’s the latest chapter in the convoluted recent history of a grand old Boston name, a publishing institution since 1832. As recently as 2001, Houghton was a strong independent company with thriving K-12 and college textbook businesses and a stable of such best-selling authors as Roger Tory Peterson, JRR Tolkien, Philip Roth, and Rachel Carson. It has had three owners since then, none of them book publishers. Although it’s unlikely that Houghton would disappear, default on its debt could mean a fire-sale breakup and a new owner or owners who could move all or parts of it from Boston.
Moody’s last month reported that Houghton, with a debt load estimated at more than 10 times gross earnings, is "a likely default" unless its loans are renegotiated. S&P last month placed parent EMPG on its list of weakest links - companies in greatest danger of debt default. "The debt level is our biggest concern," said S&P analyst Hal Diamond, "given the state of the economy and state budget constraints. While they can reduce costs, they can only go so far." Read full article…
Commentary from the field–great insights and opinions.
Link to Original Article
This morning’s item on the mass layoffs from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt prompted an employee in Orlando who survived the cuts to share another perspective, interpreting the events of the last few days as a needed wake up call: "We’ve lived a life of excess, squandering budgets, contracting friends, and pursuing the [1950s] sitcom lifestyle," this person, who claims more than two decades’ experience in the publishing world, argues.
"But over the past decade, the world has changed. The way we do business has changed. The need for lean, mean, printing machines is vital… We need the honesty that the new leadership at HMH is bringing us. We continually asked for the truth and now are having a hard time dealing with it. We had these great quarterly meetings here at Harcourt with the President. Lots of fanfare, a half day off, ice cream and lunch. It was great… but would have been better if what we were told was the truth and save the ice cream."
Not so fast: "It’s been a real disappointment over the past year or so to hear about how things will change positively, but only see… a scrambling and more mismanagement," a former HMH employee writes. "Four-five lay-offs in the one year is horrendous, even with the current economic situation… Getting rid of talented, experienced, devoted employees who actually do the work to bring a book to press is not a good choice in the long-term from my perspective." (On that note, it has been suggested to us, though unconfirmed, that the entire production department at HMH’s Lewisville offices was let go.)
Meanwhile, at HMH’s Austin outpost, another survivor emails us a grim tale…
Posted at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s web site
Last update: 11:12 a.m. EST Nov. 12, 2008BOSTON, Nov 12, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, the world’s largest publisher of pre-K–12 educational materials and a global leader in literacy education, today announced the formation of a new K–12 division to serve the educational market. The company also announced that former School Publishers president, Mike Lavelle, has been named president of the new K–12 division.
"Since acquiring Harcourt," Company Chairman and CEO Tony Lucki explained, "we have undertaken a great deal of integration activity to become one company. As we approach the one-year anniversary as a single company, we are now shifting from integration to transformation — transforming our business and processes to enable Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to drive highly strategic product development, marketing, and sales, and to better respond to the demands and opportunities of the global educational marketplace."
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s K–12 division combines five former stand-alone divisions into a single, unified business that is able to provide unsurpassed educational materials across the continuum of education. "By combining those five former divisions — School Publishers, Holt McDougal, Supplemental Publishers, Heinemann, and International Publishers," Mr. Lucki continued, "we make a major transformation into a market-driven, customer-centric company, while achieving substantial operating efficiencies."
Continue reading full press release at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt…
Dad’s book is released online!
http://www.springer.com/uk/home/generic/search/results?SGWID=3-40109-22-173755410-0
Transport Strategies for Sustainable Development in MegacitiesSeries: Alliance for Global Sustainability Bookseries , Vol. 14 Moavenzadeh, F., Markow, M.J. 2007, XVI, 272 p., Hardcover
Covering a topic of massive contemporary importance, this brilliantly written volume demonstrates how transportation strategy and environmental sustainability can be pursued in a comprehensive and harmonious, rather than unconnected and potentially conflicting, set of public policies.
It applies lessons from several urban areas (e.g., Bogota, Singapore, Mexico City, Sao Paulo), including "success stories" and less successful "hard-won lessons", to a case study in Guangzhou.
From these examples, a number of useful guidelines emerge on how the competition for resources between transportation policy and environmental sustainability can be resolved to support continued economic development in megacities.
Among the themes identified in the book are the need for a comprehensive approach that is tailored to local institutional and cultural norms, the need to understand the trade-offs among competing goals and resolve them in a balanced strategy, and the importance of demand-side management as compared to traditional approaches of investment in new capacity.
Other issues examined include the usefulness of a range of options in public-private partnerships to strengthen the financial and institutional capabilities needed for sustainable transportation.
Months of rumors ended a few weeks ago when it was confirmed that the Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group purchased the school divisions and Trade division of Harcourt for $4 billion. Harcourt Education includes the pre-K–grade 6 publisher Harcourt School Publishers; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, publisher for grades 6–12; the supplementary publisher Harcourt Achieve; and the library reference publisher Greenwood-Heinemann.
Read the full article…
Awaiting the final word on the next publishing saga where reports have mentioned that either Pearson or Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep will be buying Harcourt School Publishers. Nothing confirmed yet online but these are the articles that have appeared to date:
Article posted on The BookSeller.com
June 21, 2007
Alison Bone
The Office of Fair Trading is considering whether Pearson Education’s $950 million acquisition of Harcourt Education from Reed Elsevier will result in "a substantial lessening of competition" in the UK’s educational publishing market. The deal, unveiled in May, gives Pearson Education about 23% of the UK schools market, more than former market leaders Oxford University Press and Nelson Thornes.
The OFT, which is also currently considering Woolworth’s acquisition of Bertrams, is asking for representations from interested parties by 4th July. If it finds the deal has created a "relevant merger situation", it will then consider whether the deal could "result in a substantial lessening of competition" in the UK, and if it should be referred to the Competition Commission for further investigation.
Article posted on the London Times
May 4, 2007
Harcourt, the British-owned schools publisher, has fallen into hands of Pearson, the UK’s largest educational publisher, as part of a $950 million cash sale.
Reed Elsevier has sold to Pearson both Harcourt Education International, the Oxford based division with sales both in the UK, South Africa and New Zealand, and Harcourt Assessment, its Texas-based American educational testing business.
Article posted on the Financial Times.com
February 16 2007
By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson
Barry O’Callaghan, the Irish entrepreneur, is considering an audacious £2bn bid for Reed Elsevier’s educational publishing business, months after his educational software group completed a $5bn (£2.6bn) reverse takeover of Houghton Mifflin, the US school textbook publisher.
Sir Crispin Davis, Reed’s chief executive, yesterday announced it would sell Harcourt Education, after more than a year of falling revenues and profits stemming from errors and contract losses in its exam testing business.
A spokesman for Mr O’Callaghan would not comment, but three people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times he was "very interested" in the potential cost savings and other benefits of combining Harcourt with HM Riverdeep, the vehicle with which he bought the larger Houghton Mifflin.
Here’s recent news on the Riverdeep/HMCo setup of a holding company in the Cayman Islands. This is excerpted from an Irish news article:
By Joe Brennan and Charlie Weston Tuesday June 19 2007
HM Riverdeep (HMR), the education publishing company controlled by Barry O’Callaghan, plans to set up a new holding company for the business in the "less onerous" corporate regulatory regime of the Cayman Islands.
HMR, formed from Riverdeep’s reverse takeover of Houghton Mifflin last year to create a $5bn (€3.7bn) group, is asking shareholders to approve the setting up of a holding company called Education Media and Publishing Group at an extraordinary general meeting to be held on July 9.
In a document to shareholders, seen by the Irish Independent, O’Callaghan said that Cayman Islands law allows for greater scope in making distributions to shareholders.
"Irish law largely restricts companies to make such distributions out of realised profit less realised losses.
"The definition of profit available in the Cayman Islands is much broader and so allows for greater flexibility in making distributions out of share capital subject to limited restrictions," the group’s executive chairman continued.
Read more…
Multimedia company Riverdeep officially purchased Houghton Mifflin on November 29, 2006 for $1.75 billion in cash plus $1.61 billion of assumed debt. The new company name will be Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group.
Links to the various articles:
International Herald Tribune
Reuters
Boston.com
