Phil and I have written about the growing tension between the interests of Moodle HQ and a those of a couple of the bigger Moodle Partners, most notably Blackboard. There are a number of ways that this tension could be resolved, but one of the more dramatic possibilities would be a fork of Moodle. While […]
Netspot
Blackboard Acquires Large Latin American Moodle Provider
In my first post-BbWorld blog post, I noted that the international market is hugely important for Blackboard and Moodle is hugely important for their international strategy. Nearly a quarter of the company’s revenue and much of their growth comes from their international business, where they seem to be way ahead of their main North American […]
Two-Year Anniversary of Blackboard Acquisition of Moodlerooms and NetSpot
Two years ago today, Blackboard made a dramatic change of course with a series of public announcements: Blackboard acquired two Moodle hosting and service providers — Moodlerooms in the US and NetSpot in Australia (although they had different business models). Blackboard created an Open Source Services Group, which helps “institutions successfully manage open source learning management systems […]
The Blackboard Announcements, Part 2: Can Open Source Be Bought?
I have gotten a lot of email from folks who moved to Moodle (often from Blackboard CE) because they wanted to get away from Blackboard and they thought that open source was “safe.” In my first post on the announcements, I noted there are reasons to believe that Moodlerooms customers may do just fine under […]
Summary of Statements by Key Players in Blackboard Announcement, Including Competitors
Given all the news and discussion surrounding Blackboard’s strategy change last week, I thought that it would be useful to collect the public statements from Blackboard and their competitors in one place. No analysis, no interviews, just statements. I have a feeling that this might provide a rich source of analysis 6 – 12 months […]
Blackboard Acquires Moodlerooms and Netspot
Press release is here. This is obviously a gob smacker of a story. I’m going to take a few days, talk to a few folks, and think about the implications before I write a reaction post. You may hear from other e-Literate bloggers on the subject in the meantime. Stay tuned.