Wow! I just received an announcement that Blackboard and WebCT have agreed to merge. I think Moodle has made more of an impact than they would like to admit! Read about it here: http://www.Blackboard.com/WebCT
pretty scary! - here's an excerpt from the e-mail they sent out to exisiting customers:
"The combined company will continue to develop, innovate, upgrade, improve and support both Blackboards and WebCTs products, WebCT Vista and WebCT Campus Edition, and Blackboard Academic Suite and Blackboard Commerce Suite. Following the merger, the combined company will be actively engaged in industry standards efforts. We will develop common, standards-based APIs, based on Building Blocks and PowerLinks, that will allow the existing product lines to interoperate with one another as well as provide a means for clients of both Blackboard and WebCT to share their applications, innovations and experiences with the global client community. Over time, the combined company will incorporate the best features and usability characteristics from the two product lines into a new, standards-based product set."
... I wonder if more existing webct/blackboard users will feel inclined look for other alternatives!
Dan
"The combined company will continue to develop, innovate, upgrade, improve and support both Blackboards and WebCTs products, WebCT Vista and WebCT Campus Edition, and Blackboard Academic Suite and Blackboard Commerce Suite. Following the merger, the combined company will be actively engaged in industry standards efforts. We will develop common, standards-based APIs, based on Building Blocks and PowerLinks, that will allow the existing product lines to interoperate with one another as well as provide a means for clients of both Blackboard and WebCT to share their applications, innovations and experiences with the global client community. Over time, the combined company will incorporate the best features and usability characteristics from the two product lines into a new, standards-based product set."
... I wonder if more existing webct/blackboard users will feel inclined look for other alternatives!
Dan
My bet is that this new, standards-based product set. wil pretty much be where Enterprise 8 was going anyway, I can't imagine BB converting their main customer base to something radically different. WebCT folks, on the other hand, IMO, will need to start learning the BB interface or find some other LMS.
It does bum me out somewhat, WebCT always seemed the nicer of the two companies to me.
It does bum me out somewhat, WebCT always seemed the nicer of the two companies to me.
It seems that Blackboard is acquiring WebCT for 180million USD from the Wall Street Journal:
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
October 12, 2005 5:20 p.m.
Blackboard To Buy WebCT For $180M; Backs '05 Outlook
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
October 12, 2005 5:20 p.m.
WASHINGTON -- Blackboard Inc. (BBBB) signed a definitive agreement to acquire privately held educational software concern WebCT Inc. for $180 million in cash.
Blackboard Inc. offered 2006 guidance below the Thomson First Call mean projection.
In a press release Wednesday, Blackboard, said the transaction will "moderately" boost non-GAAP earnings but will hurt GAAP earnings in 2006. The company said the deal will "significantly" boost non-GAAP earnings but again dilute GAAP earnings in 2007.
WebCT's cash balance as of Aug. 31 was $26 million, giving the deal a net value of $154 million. The actual net value depends on WebCT's cash balance at closing, which is expected later this year or in early 2006.
Blackboard's financial adviser was Credit Suisse First Boston; WebCT retained Goldman Sachs & Co.
In after-hours trading on Inet, Blackboard changed hands recently at $21.90 a share, down $1.02 from its closing price Wednesday of $22.92.
Corrected Oct. 12, 2005 17:25 ET (21:25 GMT)
Blackboard Inc. (BBBB) offered 2006 guidance below the Thomson First Call mean projection.
(An item at 5:09 p.m. EDT incorrectly reported that the 2006 outlook is in line with expectations.)
That is amazing news.
Something that caught my eye: "Combined company will have more than 3,700 clients."
There are currently over 6000 registered moodle sites.
Something that caught my eye: "Combined company will have more than 3,700 clients."
There are currently over 6000 registered moodle sites.
True (and I don't want to sound as if I'm on "their side"), but 6000 registered Moodle sites compared to 3,700 clients is comparing apples to oranges. For example, my university (Eastern Kentucky University) is one of their clients...my individual Moodle install is one of the registered sites.
Yes agree with Steve but let's do a comparison on colleges & university deployments in 12 or 24mths time. I think you'll find the results will be startling. In New Zealand Moodle now has 50% market share of the institutes of technology and polytechnics. Moodle is also carving out market share in the schools and there's 9 universities here. One is migrating in 2006.
There's some big institutions migrating globally now. Feels good to be part of it.
cheers
Good Afternoon,
We have posted the offical SEC Report on this on our eLibrary at:
http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/BB_INC/B051012R.pdf
We will have the slides and most (about 95%) of the audio from the investor's briefing posted when they become available.
jon
We have posted the offical SEC Report on this on our eLibrary at:
http://www.immagic.com/eLibrary/ARCHIVES/GENERAL/BB_INC/B051012R.pdf
We will have the slides and most (about 95%) of the audio from the investor's briefing posted when they become available.
jon
it's hit slashdot already - with some good moodle exposure
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/12/2053257&tid=187
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/12/2053257&tid=187
In reply to Heather Jackson
Re: Blackboard and WebCT Merger Announcement
Well,
I'm sorry to disagree saying that, under my perspective, it isn't a great announcement. One less player in the arena (although they affirm that support for both products will continue), in my opinion, aren't good news for people using this type of software.
And, don't forget that we need to be really grateful to WebCT, because, without it, perhaps some Australian wouldn't have started to think about Moodle some years ago...
Just one different perspective...ciao
I'm sorry to disagree saying that, under my perspective, it isn't a great announcement. One less player in the arena (although they affirm that support for both products will continue), in my opinion, aren't good news for people using this type of software.
And, don't forget that we need to be really grateful to WebCT, because, without it, perhaps some Australian wouldn't have started to think about Moodle some years ago...
Just one different perspective...ciao
Actually, just a month ago I was in negotiations with both WebCT and Blackboard to merge with Moodle. I offered them the source code for Moodle for no fee and suggested a GPL licensing agreement. Not only would this save Blackboard $180,000,000, but it would make the industry truly standards-compliant. Unfortunately, I got no answer back and the merger talks went nowhere. 
P.S. Note that when the word "standards" is used by BB/WebCT, I am quite sure they do not mean an industry standard such as IMS-LD or SCORM, but rather their own proprietory standards, and perhaps their own newly-merged proprietory standard. If anyone has detailed information on their meaning of "standard", I would be eager to hear that.
P.S. Note that when the word "standards" is used by BB/WebCT, I am quite sure they do not mean an industry standard such as IMS-LD or SCORM, but rather their own proprietory standards, and perhaps their own newly-merged proprietory standard. If anyone has detailed information on their meaning of "standard", I would be eager to hear that.
Here's a good chart about concentration or consolidation of the market (http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/2005/08/chart-of-consolidations-us-centric-e.html)
I don't see either Blackboard or WebCT on that chart. By the way, the company I work for uses SkillSoft, and I'm actively promoting Moodle with our local training manager. In fact, one of the reasons I'm building http://linuxcapacityplanning.com is to have it available to my co-workers. I am singularly unimpressed with the content of SkillSoft -- it's way too low a level to be of much use in a high-tech company.
That's the insular nature of our markets, I think. I see few companies actually straddling the business and educations markets effectively enough to show up in analayst reports for both markets.
While Blackboard and WebCT have both been attempting to penetrate the business market for a while now, I don't very often see them included in the analyst reports on that market because they don't seem to be seen as serious players there.
For some additional food for thought, go here to read the predictions my CEO and I sent out to our vendor and subscriber list right after we heard the announcement. We'd love to see your comments, either here or at our own board.
claude 
Interesting read Claude, I agree the fence building will backfire. I think the only way BB can compete with OS in the long run is to innovate and I see no signs of that happening. Martin commented that the merger will 'keep them busy' and I suspect he's right, which means no innovation and I think there will be the start of a major move to OS solutions of which moodle is the best (IMHO) at the moment.
Rich
Rich
Hi Claude,
Martin has pointed you to the correct place but I can add:
No links but I did meet an interesting bloke at the moodlemoot this summer (sorry, I forget your name whoever you are). He said he'd looked at the VLEs available and was particuarly impressed with the commercial outfits offering services in moodle related stuff. His line was that you could often judge an OS system as being good when commercial outfits attached themselves to it. There are a LOT of serious moodle partners.
Plus I always liked John Naughton's trick about buisiness types wary of OS software:
Who here uses OS software?
(no hands)
Who here uses microsoft software?
(lots of hands)
Who uses google?
(lots of hands)
well you use OS software then because google works on Linux, as does most of the web.
Rich
Martin has pointed you to the correct place but I can add:
No links but I did meet an interesting bloke at the moodlemoot this summer (sorry, I forget your name whoever you are). He said he'd looked at the VLEs available and was particuarly impressed with the commercial outfits offering services in moodle related stuff. His line was that you could often judge an OS system as being good when commercial outfits attached themselves to it. There are a LOT of serious moodle partners.
Plus I always liked John Naughton's trick about buisiness types wary of OS software:
Who here uses OS software?
(no hands)
Who here uses microsoft software?
(lots of hands)
Who uses google?
(lots of hands)
well you use OS software then because google works on Linux, as does most of the web.
Rich