[Technical] WebCT and Blackboard eLearning systems to merge

[Con Zymaris]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2005 at 09:31:13AM +1000, Donna Benjamin wrote:
> http://tinyurl.com/bh7xr
> 
> Blackboard and WebCT, leading providers of enterprise software and
> services to the education industry have announced plans to merge." From
> the article: "Under terms of the agreement, Blackboard will acquire
> WebCT in a cash transaction for $180 million, which values the offer at
> approximately $154 million, net of WebCT's August 31, 2005 cash balance
> of $26 million. The ultimate value of the offer will vary depending on
> WebCT's cash balance at closing.
> 
> What might this mean for Moodle? 
> http://www.moodle.org/

Consolidation of proprietary vendors is normally always good for open 
source contenders. 

One (or possibly both) group(s) of either the WebCT or Blackboard users
will need to eventually migrate to the resulting product that this new
merged entity will decide to continue development on. If they merge the
products rather than opt to go with WebCT or Blackboard, then both groups
of users will need to migrate.

Any such migration is good for competitors, as it gives all users who are
forced to migrate the opportunity to sample the market: "since we are
being forced to migrate and pay, let's see what else is on offer."

Additionally, it reminds all users of proprietary products, that they are
not immune to product extinction - that paying money to a vendor is no
guarantee that the product you bought will still be around or supported in
5 years. This too dovetails nicely with open source competitors in
particular. Successful open source products, like Moodle and Plone, are
far less likely to meet evolutionary dead-ends, than say WebCT, Siebel 
CRM, Visua Basic 3 & 6 or Wordperfect.

Cheers,

Con Zymaris

- CEO, Cybersource Pty. Ltd.
- Director, Open Source Industry Australia, Limited.
- Convenor, Open Source Victoria (A Government-funded industry cluster.)
-- 
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Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia 
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company 
Web: http://www.cyber.com.au/  Phone: 03 9621 2377   Fax: 03 9621 2477