I think the bottom-line is making profits. All these publishers exist for the sole purpose of making money; they are businesses after all. Seeing how difficult it is to get something scholarly actually published (unless it be subjects that sell well and that are academically fashionable) it is no wonder that smaller publishers close down.
Brill is an interesting case: its books are extremely expensive (although some of Routledge's publications also run into hundreds of dollars, pounds, euros) and yet it can act like a monopolist.
Yours
Victor van Bijlert

From: INDOLOGY [indology-bounces@list.indology.info] on behalf of Dipak Bhattacharya [dbhattacharya200498@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:36 AM
To: Matthew Kapstein; Christopher Wallis; Dominik Wujastyk
Cc: Indology
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Brill acquires the Forsten Indology list

 
Not a bad question. Some others too indirectly related to Indology may rise.                                                                                  
Take-over of publishing companies has been going on for many years. It first came to my notice when Mouton merged into de Gruyter. Some collectors were gratified.  Old copies of many books like Lingat’s Les sources du droit...,Maximilien  Rubel’s Karl Marx etc, publications under the series ‘Le Monde d’Outre Mer...’ ,’Janua Linguarum’  etc were sold extremely cheap.
But the occurrence of the phenomenon in the West has remained a mystery to me. Take-over and liquidation take place in India too. Usually labor trouble is blamed. But sometimes the role played by notorious takeover kings is clear. Also the proverbial throwing out the refuse after squeezing the juice is often indicated. But, according to my knowledge, there are strong laws against such malpractice or abuse of law in the highly industrialized countries. Then why should an active and apparently profitably running company lose its entity?
Best
DB      

From: Matthew Kapstein <mkapstei@uchicago.edu>
To: Christopher Wallis <bhairava11@gmail.com>; Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk@gmail.com>
Cc: Indology <indology@list.indology.info>
Sent: Tuesday, 14 May 2013 11:12 PM
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Brill acquires the Forsten Indology list

Was Forsten a bargain?

Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago


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