But Kent Anderson's recent piece  at Scholarly Kitchen is relevant to the Aries acquisition -- though he wrote it before the coup.

One way of interpreting the Aries acquisition is not so much an attempt to control and hold on to the scientific paper workflow (though I think it is that), but as a straightforward reinforcement and investment in peer review and quality control as such -- for the total system. And in this way it may be a more strategic asset than Wiley's acquisition of Atypon.

The inevitable (but mostly unforeseen and uncalled for) rise of Predatory Publishing (and as Kent Anderson points out) with big attractions for 'neglected' areas of scientific research in an Open Access market (striking problems also for publishing in India and China) does also attract substandard and fraudulent papers and research. Some models of OA publishing may be able to afford heavyweight editorial systems and it would be very much in Elsevier's interest to sustain this without owning it -- but quality and complexity in workflow has its costs and maintaining these standards with a cost structure forms a type of defensive moat. And incidentally leaves the 'free' systems as more exposed to the predations of predatory publishers -- by definition those publishers will not be looking for Aries or similar with those cost/benefits of managing and revising, improving and rejecting.

Is this a moment in Elsevier's effort to evolve to an iOS position for scientific research, leaving classic OA efforts to trail in an Android mode, perpetually open but somewhat vulnerable? 

adam