![]() RefWorks relies - though it feels odd to continue to use the present tense - nearly exclusively on these deals. university library) that signs multi-year site licenses for tens of thousands of dollars each. EndNote’s bread and butter isn’t the poor sap who shells out $300 for a boxed copy. Individual researchers, in the aggregate, never paid for the software. It’s misleading to blame the need to be acquired by a deep-pocketed publisher on the Web 2.0 generation’s purported aversion to paying for software. Users don’t pay for research software, just like they don’t pay for content It just means that they won’t be gold strikes on the merits.Ģ. This gloomy outlook doesn’t mean that independent projects can’t thrive. But based on the market it was the only remunerative outcome. Now there’s nothing wrong with this strategy, or even with the need to be coy about it. Acquisition was always the exit strategy. And now to turn some massive, VC-satisfying, profit? The “business model” could never continue on its own, let alone withstand the scrutiny of a public offering. We’re talking about an annual burn rate that’s solidly in the millions, no matter how you slice it. With that in mind, I can assure you that there is simply no way to pay 3 FTEs, let alone Mendeley’s claimed 45, on “tens of thousands of dollars” per month. And as for Mendeley’s “business model,” well, that’s what Zotero has actually been doing since 2009. I also know exactly what good developers and sound infrastructure cost. ![]() Trust me, it’s not the thing of VC dreams. ![]() Thanks to certain events, I have an exceptionally clear idea of EndNote’s revenue and overhead. There’s just not a lot of money to be had in this space. Research software doesn’t make (enough) money And now in 2013 we can add to that stable of publisher-owned reference managers Papers (Springer) and, apparently, Mendeley (Elsevier).Īs someone who has led a successful and sustainable project in this space for over six years, I’d like to put this rumor in perspective, because it speaks volumes about the space of academic research software, even if the Elsevier purchase never materializes.ġ. When Zotero launched then, the major players were Endnote (Thomson Reuters) and RefWorks (ProQuest), each owned by a major content provider. TechCrunch’s dependably credulous reporter duly transcribed the leaker’s claims that publishing is “the world that Mendeley is disrupting.” But this story has really nothing to do with a “disruption” in academic publishing, and if anything what we’re seeing is a reversion to 2006 or so. The tiny and insular world where academia, technology, and business converge buzzed all day yesterday (and continues to do so today) about publishing giant Elsevier’s rumored bid to purchase Mendeley for $100M. Hello Again, 2006: The Economics of Reference Management Software
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