Europe’s largest media company Bertelsmann plans to invest up to seven billion euros (£5 billion) in the internet, the services industry and the education sector as part of a wider strategy to boost growth at the company (via release). In a speech to 600 of the company’s managers in Berlin outlining the company’s future road plan, incoming CEO Hartmut Ostrowski noted that the education sector not only “promised high growth rates,” but that the combination of education and internet “[opened] up some interesting business prospects” for the company.

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But Ostrowski plans to proceed with caution with the internet. He told Bloomberg, that Bertelsmann is “not going to invest in big Internet projects” as “investing in the internet is always a bet” and “the chances of a flop is bigger than success.” (Ed: Ridiculous) In the past, Bertelsmann has been burnt before over its web investments, having lost millions with book e-tailer, Barnesandnoble.com, as well as its own e-commerce book site BOL.com. But the combined hit it took from the two look like small change compared to the amount it lavished and lost on Napster. Bertelsmann partly blamed the 66 percent decline on its net income in the first nine months of 2007 on the money it was forced to fork out—a reported $400 million (£198 million pounds)—to settle a copyright dispute around Napster. Bertelsmann said that by 2015 it plans to boost revenues from its current level of nearly 20 billion euros (£14 billion) to over 30 billion euros (£21 billion).