e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: IBM

  • About The Blackboard Partnership With IBM And Amazon Web Services

    Leading into BbWorld16, Blackboard’s annual users conference in the air conditioned bunker of The Venetian in Las Vegas, the company announced that they were partnering with IBM.

    Blackboard Inc. and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a collaborative agreement for IBM to manage Blackboard’s datacenters and cloud infrastructure. The two companies will also work together to develop innovative educational solutions, taking advantage of IBM Watson’s cognitive computing technology and Blackboard’s broad capabilities suite.

    Under the agreement, IBM will manage much of Blackboard’s technology infrastructure, including the company’s 28 global data centers and its existing public cloud footprint. IBM will also provide support for Blackboard’s expanding use of the public cloud. Blackboard will leverage IBM’s expertise and software to offer customers some of the most flexible, reliable, security-rich and resilient environments available.

    What the initial press release did not capture, and what has become quite apparent at BbWorld16, is that this is really a three-way partnership between Blackboard, IBM, and Amazon (for Amazon Web Services, or AWS). Peter George, Blackboard’s SVP of Products, noted this critical distinction in his blog post “Partnering with AWS and IBM for cloud services and infrastructure management”. (more…)

  • Plus Ca Change: About that ed tech adoption curve

    All the same We take our chances
    Laughed at by Time, Tricked by Circumstances
    Plus ca change, Plus c’est la meme chose
    The more that things change, The more they stay the same

    – Rush, Circumstances

    Over the past few years I have increased my usage of the technology adoption curve – originating from Everett Rogers and extended by Geoffrey Moore – to explain some of the tension faced by ed tech support organizations. In a nutshell, a bigger determination of adoption patterns of pedagogical and technology-enabled changes in education is from social change issues rather than the innovation (whether purely pedagogical or tech-based) itself. It’s not technology, it’s people. One graphic in particular that I use is based on the notion that while Moore presented a chasm in the technology adoption curve describing solutions moving across the chasm to reach majority markets, a bigger issue is that we will always have innovators, early adopters, majority and laggard groups in education, with a constant flux of teaching and learning innovations. Therefore the issue is straddling the chasm, helping both sides.

    When Michael and I gave a keynote at last month’s OpenEd conference, the always interesting Alan Levine pointed out via Twitter (and referencing a blog post of his) that this perspective reminded him of one he read years ago and rediscovered in 2014. I found the article (and the author, I think), and it is a fascinating read that shows just how strong the pattern of innovation in ed tech is. The 1994 article could be written today with just a few changes to examples used. (more…)

  • IBM’s Misleading or Just Incorrect National Ad on Student Retention

    Thanks to Chris Edwards for alerting me to this one. In a nutshell, IBM launched a national ad campaign last month that included commercials during Wimbledon on the weekend. They’re spending big money on this campaign about big data, learning analytics, and reducing “dropout rates” [emphasis added below].

    In the US, 3 in 10 college students drop out, but how can you spot who is at risk? The one who lives far from campus? The one who works the night shift? The one with new responsibilities? One thing can’t tell you, but the right combination can. Universities are using IBM Analytics to understand pressures in and out of the classroom. Some expect to cut dropout rates by 25%. IBM Analytics is working to make education smarter every day.

    If you follow the URL listed at the end of the YouTube video and select ‘Education’, you get to the main page that highlights the same video as above. For further explanation: (more…)

  • Why I'm Not Worried about the Microsoft Patent Threats Against Linux

    Understandably, there’s been a lot of hand wringing about this. But the experts and evidence all suggest that Microsoft is all bark and no bite in this particular case.

    (more…)

  • Once Again, IBM Sets a Good Example for Blackboard on Patents

    The New York Times has a piece out today on IBM’s latest responsibility in patenting initiative. It seems that Big Blue will advertise its pending patents. Some details:

    The policy, being announced today, includes standards like clearly identifying the corporate ownership of patents, to avoid filings that cloak authorship under the name of an individual or dummy company. It also asserts that so-called business methods alone – broad descriptions of ideas, without technical specifics – should not be patentable.

    No blind-siding competitors with surprise lawsuits from submarine patents? No trying to own broad ideas (like…oh, I don’t know…multi-role, multi-class educational groupware, for instance)? How refreshing!

    Note that IBM is taking this step despite the fact that it will cost the company:

    Patents typically take three or four years after filing to be approved by the patent office. Companies often try to keep patent applications private for as long as possible, to try to hide their technical intentions from rivals.

    “Competitors will know years ahead in some cases what fields we’re working on,” said John Kelly, senior vice president for technology and intellectual property at I.B.M. “We’ve decided we’ll take that risk and seek our competitive advantage elsewhere.”

    Nobody can claim that this is a throw-away for IBM–that it is donating patents that it has already written off as worthless. This policy goes for all their patent applications. Why are they doing this? Because they have come to believe the current environment of patent litigation damages innovation:

    “The larger picture here is that intellectual property is the crucial capital in a global knowledge economy,” said Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M.’s chief executive. “If you need a dozen lawyers involved every time you want to do something, it’s going to be a huge barrier. We need to make sure that intellectual property is not used as a barrier to growth in the future.”

    That’s it in a nutshell. That’s the problem with the Blackboard patent. If you need a dozen lawyers involved every time you want to develop educational software, it’s going to be a huge barrier. IBM has it right.

  • Even Microsoft Disagrees with Blackboard

    I recently noted that, contrary to Blackboard General Counsel Matthew Small’s assertion that no patent holder can say for certain what they will or will not do with a patent, IBM has done exactly that by providing royalty-free licenses to linux on hundreds of their patents. But hey, that’s IBM. They’re into all that crazy hippy Open Source linux stuff. Surely a normal software company wouldn’t do that…right?

    If IBM is too radical for you, then let’s look at Microsoft. Surprise, surprise, even that bastion of voracious techno-capitalism has announced that they promise–promise!!–not to assert patents that they hold on web services against anyone. And once again, that promise comes in the form of a legally binding license.

    The next time any of you has the opportunity to speak with Matt Small, ask him why Blackboard is unwilling to do what all of the software industry leaders are doing with increasing frequency. Ask him why Blackboard will not provide a royalty-free license to whomever they claim that they will not sue. If you are a Blackboard customer, ask him why he won’t offer you a royalty free license to indemnify you. He clearly can. His only other truthful answer would be that it would reduce the value of the patent for him to do so. Because, you know, somebody someday may buy the patent from Blackboard, and if that somebody can’t sue you with it then Blackboard will get less money from the sale.

    Nice, huh?

  • Hiding Falsehoods and FUD Behind Legalisms

    In a recent article in the Windsor Star, everyone’s favorite plain talker, Blackboard General Counsel Matthew Small, made the following statement:

    “No patent holder can definitely say, ‘I will not do X with my patent.’ However, I can say very confidently that we are focusing on the commercial sector.”

    The first half of this statement is absolutely false and Small should (and probably does) know better. Which perhaps tells us something about the second half of his statement as well. (more…)