I have forwarded this from another list as I thought it may be of interest to us all. Do we agree with Tom and what are the likely impacts on Open Source VLEs?
Chris
For those who have not seen elsewhere....
BlackBoard and WebCT are to merge (see http://www.blackboard.com/WebCT) for
the announcement.
I would have thought that this has to be a thoroughly bad thing for us. It
will give them a virtual monopoly in the HE field, and without competition
prices are likely to rocket! They claim "Over time, Blackboard will
incorporate the best features and usability characteristics from the two
product lines into a new standards-based product set." but I am not
convinced that they wont try to use their position to create de facto
standards (like Microsoft).
Perhaps it is good news for the open source VLEs!
regards
Tom Franklin
Franklin Consulting
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