McGraw-Hill Cos.

Who ever said the best way to read a textbook was from the start to finish?

At the Consumer Electronics Show Monday night McGraw-Hill Education MHP -0.51%, a division of the McGraw-Hill Companies, will demonstrate its new adaptive e-book for students dubbed “SmartBook,” which promises to “break the centuries-old tradition of books as linear experience.”

Philip Ruppel and McGraw-Hill Professional (MHP)—the publishing company for which Ruppel serves as president—arrived early to the digital party.

PDA has been increasingly adopted by libraries, and more digital distribution services are offering this as a purchase option.

On Wednesday, Jan. 27, Apple finally confirmed escalating rumors of its impending tablet, with Steve Jobs' announcement of the company's new iPad—which many describe as looking and functioning like a big iPhone—with a 9.7-inch, LED backlit, color touch-screen and WiFi, and an option for 3G via AT&T.

It has been another year of increasing challenges and opportunities for book publishing executives as manufacturing and distribution costs escalate, and the media landscape shifts and shimmies before our very eyes. As costs continue their steep incline and new opportunities on the digital horizon demand more and more attention, many of you have been increasingly tasked with wearing additional hats—whether you’re the president, the head of operations or manufacturing, the production director, marketing director, or just about any other position. While publishing has never been a cakewalk (for most, anyway), it seems that now is a time when you certainly need to earn your

In the ever-changing world of multimedia and shoppers who expect things at the click of the mouse, e-commerce solutions are in high demand. “These days it’s so important to give your Web customers a great experience,” says Jim Morse, president of Morse Data Corp. To do so, it is important to select solutions that fit your company size, scope, staff and budget. The following advice from several e-commerce solution providers can help guide you through the process of deciding which product works best for your company. “A publisher should analyze the cost of not only the development of a solution, but the manpower

Another chapter in the battle for book search dominance was written last week as Google issued additional subpoenas to other major book search players in a bid for information the company believes could be used in its future legal battles. According to published reports this week by Bloomberg, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company filed paper on Oct. 5 in U.S. District Court to seek information from Amazon.com, Microsoft and Yahoo about each of the rival book searches for future use in several lawsuits Google faces. The world’s largest online retailer (Amazon), largest software producer (Microsoft) and most-popular U.S. Web site (Yahoo) have all announced or

Publishers, distributors and e-retailers expect the advent and growth of smart phones and multifunctional personal digital assistants (PDAs) to stimulate the growth of the young e-book market. Yet, no matter how young or how small the market is, publishers have made a commitment to e-books and are anticipating the market will take off. The size of the e-book market in terms of revenue is based on the number of available titles, publishers' revenues or the revenues generated by e-retailers. For example, the New York-based International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), formerly the Open eBook Forum, reported in its "eBook Statistics" for the fourth quarter

The McGraw-Hill Cos. reported that its fiscal year 2004 earnings rose 9.5 percent over 2003, while its net income for the same period rose 9.9 percent, from $687.7 million to $755.8 million. Revenues increased 10.6 percent to $1.4 billion in fourth quarter 2004, while net income for the quarter was $190 million. In its book-publishing segments, McGraw-Hill's education division reported a 2-percent increase in revenue to $2.4 billion, while operating profit grew 5.7 percent to $340 million compared to 2003. Fourth quarter revenue in the education segment increased 4.9 percent to $529.3 million, says Harold McGraw III, chairman, president and chief executive