Another Stake in Ground for Blackboard: Two New Investments in the Open-source E-learning Market

Another Stake in Ground for Blackboard: Two New Investments in the Open-source E-learning Market:
Blackboard’s statement of principles about open source says it is

“committed to supporting the growth, development and use of open source technologies in education worldwide.”

Blackboard also says it

“expects
to make significant contributions to the community to help ensure that
open source options remain strong, reliable and sustainable for all.” 

To that end, Blackboard has launched a new business called Blackboard Education Open Source Services – a good thing, right? Read on…

In support of this broader vision, Blackboard announced on Monday that it had acquired two companies - the first, Moodlerooms and the second, NetSpot. Moodlerooms is a solution provider that hosts Moodle
for organizations, integrates enterprise features for Moodle, and
provides consultation service and training for organizations interested
in the low-cost, popular open-source Moodle LMS (they call is a CMS) and
also customization, flexibility and extended features for the
enterprise.  So, a competitor in the LMS space made up of customers that
likely were trying to avoid Blackboard in the first place. Can you
taste the irony?

By way of background, and in the event you don’t
know much about open source LMSs, Moodle came on to open-source scene
several years ago as an LMS/CMS used primarily by schools (K-12 to
higher education) often as an alternative to Blackboard. (Perhaps the
strategy here is if you can’t beat them, join them.). Anyway, over the
years, as more corporations started using Moodle as an enterprise LMS,
not surprisingly a Moodle services market sprang up which today includes
several solution providers – like Moodlerooms and NetSpot.

Back
to the acquisitions... and moving on to the second one, NetSpot. Like
Moodlerooms, NetSpot is a Moodle Partner however; it is located in
Australia servicing the Asia Pacific region. Like Moodlerooms (which BTW
is based in Maryland), NetSpot provides services like hosting, support
and help desk and integration and migration. So a global move too.

What the heck does all this mean? I found myself agreeing with Christopher Dawson’s summary at ZDNet Education about these acquisitions. He wonders,

“Is
this a major play for market share, a genuine effort to promote
development and cross-pollination in the LMS market, or a bit of both?"

None
of us are naïve enough to not realize that Blackboard is no longer
publicly traded but owned by a private equity firm. But…still. ?

For
now, enterprise users of Moodlerooms and NetSpot can rest easy knowing
that Blackboard plans on letting them run as they are now vs. swallowing
them whole as they did with Elluminate, the virtual classroom.
Enterprise users of Blackboard might look forward to more options.
That’s a good thing. I’m just  going to make a bag of popcorn and watch
it play out.

Here’s some interesting reads on this topic:

•  This kids, is why hallucinogenics and the internet don’t mix by George Siemens at elearnspace  (higher ed-focus and funny)
• Blackboard Acquires Moodlerooms, NetSpot To Offer Open Source Learning Technology, Leena Rao at TechCrunch
• Blackboard buys Moodlerooms...And no, this isn't an early April Fools by Christopher Dawson, ZDNet Education
• Evolution Unbound: Blackboard embraces open source. By Ray Henderson, President of Blackboard Learn
• Blackboard Confronts Erosion of Market Share, Makes a Major Change in Strategy by Phil Hill at e-Literate
• Blackboard Education Open Source Services – a personal view by Mark Drechsler, Director, Consulting NetSpot Pty Ltd

-Janet Clarey