As noted in yesterday’s Library Journal Academic Newswire,

“Springer, the world’s second largest publisher of commercial STM (science, technology, and medicine) journals, has acquired pioneering for-profit open access (OA) publisher BioMed Central (BMC). Financial terms were not disclosed. On the balance sheet, adding BioMed Central would seem to be a very minor deal for Springer; BioMed Central publishes some 193 open access journals with revenues of roughly $24.5 million, while Springer publishes over 1700 journals in addition to 5500 new books annually, with revenues nearly $1.25 billion. It is a significant event in the history of open access publishing, however, as a leading commercial publisher has now expressed confidence in a business model once deemed, at best, experimental, and often called untenable.”

Springer has announced their commitment to Open Access journals, but has not disclosed their plans for any changes to BMC’s current Open Access model.