Blackboard Bought Xythos

The Chronicle just confirmed it. For those who don’t know, Blackboard Content System is based on the Xythos Content Server product. So now Bb owns a content management engine and can integrate it pervasively with the rest of its product line. (To date, the integration between Bb Content System and their LMS is relatively weak.) This fits well with the trend we’re seeing elsewhere, e.g., Moodle and Sakai both building JSR-170 repositories underneath all of their various LMS tools, ANGEL and D2L both selling some kind of content management add-ons, etc. Clearly, the integration of content management into core teaching tools and processes is going to be a big story in 2008.

Damn. I shoulda included that in my eLearn predictions.