For several months, all eyes in the world of books—authors, publishers, librarians, and a great many readers—were trained on the district court for the Southern District of New York and Judge Denny Chin, because a seemingly small-scale squabble over copyright looked likely to determine the digital future for all of us.

Houghton will be providing a computer-based teaching system it developed with Microsoft Corp. that will connect teachers, students, and administrators. It’s a radical shift away from the classic textbook publishing model and represents an industry transformation, as technology supplants textbooks.