e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: bbplusangel

  • Anti-trust: Curiouser and Curiouser

    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 with what they know about the investigation.
    • May 27th: Blackboard files an 8-K statement informing investors that they have received the request from the DoJ.

    A couple of things are odd about this chronology. First, is it really plausible that DoJ didn’t contact Blackboard until eight days after they contacted D2L? Blackboard is careful in the language of their filing; they don’t indicate that the request for information on the 22nd was their first contact from the Department of Justice. Second, is it normal for Blackboard to wait until 5 days after the contact (granting that three of those days were a holiday weekend) to file the 8-K?

    I’m certainly not an expert in this area of the law, so if any readers out there can provide insight into what could be going on here and to what degree it matters, please do share. For that matter, if anyone out there has anti-trust experience and can explain what DoJ’s options are going forward, that would be very helpful.

    Meanwhile I have heard from a surprising number of LMS vendors that they have been contacted by DoJ. Clearly, the government is taking this seriously. In most cases, these appear to be just initial contacts. I haven’t heard yet from any schools, although Jeff Young’s reporting at The Chronicle indicates that schools are being contacted. Again, if you are at a school and have had some contact with the DoJ over this issue, please let me know.

  • 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 [dot] com.

  • 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 anti-trust concern with this combination.“

    On May 14, 2009, nearly 2 weeks ago (and the day that Michael Chasen addressed the attendees at the ANGEL users’ conference), the United States Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (DOJ) opened an investigation on the Blackboard acquisition of ANGEL. We were notified that same day (presumably Blackboard and ANGEL Learning were notified well before then). At that time we thought this information was confidential, so we did not disclose it.

    Today the DOJ advised us that the investigation is not, and has never been, confidential. In the coming days and weeks, it is likely that we will be responding to requests from the DOJ about the market.

    Given the interest of the educational community in these developments, we thought it important to share this information.

  • 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 for Blackboard?

    Many of us remember when WebCT’s Chris Vento was made Blackboard’s Senior Vice President of Technology and Product Development after that merger. Like Ray, Chris was regarded as a leader in the field. And like Ray, he was a champion of open standards. I remember listening to Chris, soon after the merger, speaking with great confidence about how Blackboard was committed to standards like Tool Interoperability, how openness was good for Blackboard’s business, and how it was a new day. A year later, he was gone. Blackboard is not known today for its leadership in open standards. Nor is it known for its leadership in customer service—something that the company claimed it was going to learn from WebCT and claims again that it will learn from ANGEL. Going by the tweets from the ANGEL user conference, Blackboard’s leadership wasn’t talking a whole lot this week about how Chris and the WebCT leadership helped to change Blackboard’s culture for the better. When the speakers mentioned WebCT at all, it seemed to be mostly to say that they underestimated how buggy the software was. That’s not change we can believe in.

    So the question is whether Blackboard will prove more willing to be changed by Ray and ANGEL than they were by Chris and WebCT. Are they ready to learn? Time will tell. But there are three specific actions I will be watching for as early tests of just how serious Blackboard is about learning from ANGEL, particularly with regard to openness.

    (more…)

  • 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? Your fears? Your expectations? How does this change the landscape? Please comment.

    Again, if you are writing your own blog post on the topic, you can ping this post by linking to it. Alternatively, I’m proposing the tag “bb-angel” for blogging, Twittering, del.icio.us…ing, etc.

  • 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 will show up as a pingback in the comments section of this 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, and in providing top-notch customer service. I fervently hope that this acquisition will give you all opportunities to continue your great work.

    To my friends at Blackboard (and yes, I do have friends at Blackboard), I hope that you gain all that ANGEL has to offer. In addition to some great colleagues, you are getting a company with a reputation for leading the charge on open standards, supporting independent open source projects, and being superb partners and community members.