When I was a kid I read a book by Spanish author Cervantes, Don Quijote. One of the famous quotes not in the book but somehow attributed to him goes something like this: "Ladran, Sancho, señal que cabalgamos". Translated: "They are barking, Sancho, evidence that we are riding" (advancing or moving forward).

That's what's happening here. These companies are barking because they are starting to see motion in a direction that does not benefit them and they are not ready to pivot towards.

I must admit to not having evaluated what Boundless offers. I have not idea if they are trying to copy layout and design while inserting different words in the book. Or maybe their approach is to provide substantially the same content while being guided by the content of specific printed books. I suppose that dissection will be left up to the courts.

Here is what I do know: Printed textbooks could certainly be made and sold for less. How much have algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, physics, chemistry, history, geography, philosophy, etc. changed over the years for all but the most advanced levels of study? Not much, if at all. You could easily argue that, by now, a subject such as Trigonometry --where nothing new has happened for quite some time-- ought to result in free or near-free books. Nothing new needs to be written.

Yet, new books are printed and old books are discarded every year. And these new books are very, very expensive for no good reason. If you can buy a 400 page book from Amazon for $20 there's no reason for a textbook on most subjects to cost a penny more than this. If anything it should probably cost less.

Why in the world does a book on Biology sell for $152?

A long time ago I read a very interesting book on business failures. I don't recall the exact title. It was something like "Why good companies fail". One of the key premises in the book was that companies that might lead or have a significant presence in a particular industry tend to ignore revolutionary change in their industry due to being really good about managing their existing business.

This seems counterintuitive. Good management == Failure?

Yes, that can and has happened many times. The book covered a wide range of industries, from the back-hoe tractor business to the hard drive industry. In every case-study the authors showed how the market-leader ignored what was going to be the next big thing out of an effort to protect and continue to grow and optimize their existing business.

On the hard drive industry they tell the story of Seagate ignoring some of their engineers clamoring to build 3.5in hard drives. The managers, perhaps rightly so, are claimed to have said that IBM (their largest customer) did not want smaller drives with lesser capacity but rather the same 5.25in drives with greater capacity. They dismissed the engineers as not understanding their business and told them that they could do whatever they wanted with the useless 3.5in prototypes they designed and built on their own time. They left the company and started Conner Peripherals, which, for some time, owned the hard drive market and revolutionized it with their new small drives.

I may not have the story precisely right because I don't recall all the details from when I read the book. The point of the story is mechanism to failure, which is what matters here. I also found this presentation that hits on this and other causes for failures:

http://www.apa.org/divisions/div13/Presentations/Why%20Good%...

I think the bottom line is that these companies have a really high probability of going extinct if they don't learn to adapt and figure out how to evolve rather than trying to do business as they have been doing for so long. The cheese moved.

Litigation is one of the most perplexing things in business, at least for me. I've been around and have the scars to prove it. And, for the life of me I can't figure out why companies engage in this suicidal ritual for the dumbest of reasons.

One of my favorite examples is company A filing a lawsuit to collect on a debt from company B during the economic downturn. The scenario I witnessed was almost surreal. Company B pleaded with company A and demonstrated that orders had stopped and customers simply could not get financing to purchase widgets from company B. Company A --a multi-billion-dollar entity-- did not want to reason and filed a lawsuit. Company B's CEO pleaded for patience and reaffirmed that the was no ill-will here, it was a simple matter of arithmetic: Not enough money was coming in to pay debts. Whatever was coming in had to be devoted to keeping people employed and making sure that the company could continue to exist in order to recover once things turned around. Nobody would listen.

Company B was forced into filing bankruptcy. Company A got absolutely nothing out of the whole experiment other than forcing an otherwise good business into bankruptcy and loosing a valuable customer for life. Those running Company B started another business in the same industry two years later. Do you think they are doing business with Company A now?

Sorry for the detour there. The point is that litigation is like being critical of someone's looks or weight. It only breeds negativity in the relationship. It seldom produces the desire to cooperate and find ways to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

These companies would probably be better served by seeking to form a partnership with the revolutionaries in order to ensure that they are the ones who survive the transition.

There is no doubt that education will see massive changes over the next decade. And, rightly so. From books to, unionized teachers, testing, government-driven curriculum and the way education is managed and dispensed, the entire industry is, of their own doing, ripe for take-over by new ideas that are sure to make it better.