Phil Hill has two good blog posts up in response to Blackboard’s announcement that it has received at least two “unsolicited non-binding proposals” for the company to be acquired. In his first post, Phil argues that, whatever the outcome of the bidding, Blackboard’s brand value will be hurt:
In one dramatic shift, Blackboard has gone from the known to the unknown. For years, one of Blackboard’s greatest sales strength was the message that it was here to stay. Unlike that pesky Desire2Learn, who might succumb to lawyer’s bills and the patent fight, Blackboard was a solid investment with the corporate muscle to be here for the long haul. Unlike those pesky open source providers, who might disappear or stop developing, Blackboard presented “one throat to choke” and was reliable. Now, can anyone reliably guess what’s going to happen to Blackboard, who will provide services, whether the roadmap will completely change?
This sales advantage is now gone.
I’m somewhat agonistic on this point. I see Phil’s argument, but the size of the impact may be significantly different depending on whether the acquirer somebody like McGraw Hill, somebody like News Corp., or if no acquisition comes through (which I think is the most likely scenario). I don’t have a strong gut feeling about how much this changes the sales conversation.
In his second post, Phil takes issue with one of my previous posts:
Michael is right and you should read the whole post and its second part, but I have a different opinion on the conclusions. I agree with the conclusions that…
by 2014 we may see it beginning to change the whole picture for educational technology infrastructure in some fundamental ways. Buckle up, folks. It’s going to be an interesting ride.,
but I am less inclined to rely on straight-line projections of market data to look ahead, and am more inclined to think the market changes we are seeing are driven by outside forces with potentially nonlinear effects. Rome may have been weakened from within, but when real change happened, the Visigoths made it happen….
Today, there is a flood of new money into the educational technology market. In addition to the potential acquisition of Blackboard, Instructure just raised $8M in venture funding and vying for the role of Alaric in their marketing position, Pearson has been heavily investing in Learning Studio (eCollege for you old-timers), and Moodlerooms raised $7+M in venture funding. Publishing companies, ERP vendors, private equity, venture funding – these are major disruptive forces. And there is still significant moves being made by technology companies such as Google.
Whatever happens with the potential acquisition of Blackboard, expect to see a different market emerge, with new dynamics. For higher education institutions – is your academic technology strategy ready to handle the changes in the market?
I’m not sure that we actually disagree. I also believe that there are some pretty massive changes taking place in the educational technology markets. The only question I would raise is whether those changes will hit quickly enough to substantially change the likely outcome of the evaluations that WebCT and ANGEL customers are going to have to complete in the next 24 months.
Let’s dig into the details a little and see what we can figure out.