Electronic textbooks seemed like a good idea, but when one of them went out of business last month, it appears they left plenty of students and professors completely stranded. The company had promised they wouldn't shut down mid-semester, but they're now gone - and no one can reach anyone associated with the company. This was always the fear that some companies had in working with ASP software providers. How would you feel if all of your sales force automation info was in an online system that went out of business? Most ASPs handle the issue with some sort of escrow deal that guarantees the servers will continue to run for some period of time after the company goes out of business. Apparently, no one thought to do the same thing with online text books.