Here’s the chronology for the Blackboard anti-trust investigation as far as we know so far: May 14th: The U.S. Department of Justice contacts Desire2Learn and informs them that they are investigating the merger. May 22nd: According to their subsequent legal filing, Blackboard “received a voluntary request for information” from DoJ. May 26th: Desire2Learn goes public […]
bbplusangel
Has the Department of Justice Called You?
Jeff Young from The Chronicle of Higher Education has a well-researched piece up on the Department of Justice’s early steps toward investigating ANGEL’s acquisition by Blackboard. If anybody out there has talked to the DoJ and would like to share some details, please let me know. You can contact me privately at michael [at] mfeldstein […]
US Department of Justice Investigating Blackboard ANGEL Acquisition
This just in from Desire2Learn’s patent blog: Blackboard issued two press releases regarding its acquisition of ANGEL Learning (ANGEL) – one on May 6, announcing the intention to acquire, and one on May 11, stating that the acquisition was complete. Indeed, Matthew Small, Blackboard’s chief business officer (and general counsel) stated “I don’t think that there’s any […]
Three Tests for the 'New' Blackboard
Today Blackboard announced that ANGEL’s Ray Henderson will be the new President of the Blackboard Learn division. This is great news. Ray is one of the best executives in educational technology today, known for his competence, his integrity, and his leadership in supporting open standards and openness in general. Does this mean a new beginning […]
Open Thread on Blackboard/ANGEL Merger
Update: It looks like “bbplusangel” has already gotten some momentum on Twitter, so I’m switching my tag over to that. I’ve already invited the opinions of ANGEL customers on a different post, but let me throw the doors wide open. I’m really curious to hear from all of you regarding your opinions. What are your hopes? […]
Looking for ANGEL Customer Reaction
I’m looking to get a sense of the reaction of the Blackboard/ANGEL news from ANGEL customers. If you are an ANGEL customer, please let me know what you think in the comments to this post. If you are writing a blog post of your own, please ping this post by linking to it. (Your post […]
Wow
As you may have heard by now, Blackboard has acquired ANGEL. There will be plenty of time for analysis in the days ahead. For now, I just have a personal message. To my friends at ANGEL, I wish you well. You all have done great work advancing the causes of interoperability and ease of use, […]