Thanks for flagging this up for the HEP community. I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can – but these are personal opinions at the moment.

>>Will Springer begin to adopt BMC’s commitment to Open Access?

I don’t know about rolling out the BMC/PhysMath Central business model to their existing journals, but it’s worth bearing in mind that Springer have been one of the more adventurous of the bigger publishers when it comes to open access. Their Open Choice model was quickly adapted and adopted by others and they had – until recently – a director of open access in Jan Velterop. So I imagine they will be looking closely at the feasibility of switching OA, but I suspect it won’t happen in the immediate future.

>>Will BMC’s fees and policies begin to line up with Springer’s (and will this be good or bad for access)?

Can’t say yet, but we would like to remain at the levels we are at the levels we are (or thereabouts) for our article procesing charges.

>>Is it a sign that Open Access is truly a mainstream business model for the publishing world?

Yes: the fact that this has happened primarily for commercial reasons answers that!