News: Multimedia Publishing in Europe
TERRY L. TAYLOR, CO-EDITOR H-ALBION (TAYLORT@ALPHA.NSULA.EDU)
Mon, 19 Jun 1995 09:35:53 -0600
Europeans face a multitude of obstacles to successful
multimedia publishing -- as many obstacles as there are
languages, some say. "What works in France may not work in
Germany or Britain. We Europeans like the same music, but
not the same books about music," says the head of
Hachette-Livre's electronic publishing. The start-up costs
for each CD-ROM product are very high, and the market for
each language is small. Meanwhile, U.S. companies are
finding that simply translating their established CD-ROM
products is relatively easy, and are threatening to
overwhelm the European start-ups with a slew of new titles.
One area where almost all the European publishers plan new
products: Language lessons. (Wall Street Journal 6/16/95
B5C via Edupage)