News

News, trends, and business deals in the e-learning arena.  


December 15, 2005

 

Southern Virtual Schools Get Lift from BellSouth Corp.

 

BellSouth Corp. has launched an initiative to provide online instruction in technical and other skills to needy students throughout the southeast, and will support it with $20 million gift from the Bell South Foundation. BellSouth’s “20/20 Vision for Education” initiative will support state-led virtual schools and technology-based learning, while also tapping a network of volunteers to provide tutoring and other support.

 

The investment in e-learning is aimed at preparing students to succeed in high school and college, and in providing real world experience to enhance their ability to succeed in the workforce, says Dick Anderson, chairman of the board of BellSouth Foundation. Partners include the Carver School of Technology, part of the Atlanta Public School System’s New Schools of Carver, which will serve as a pilot site. In addition, the National Governors Association will help promote online learning among high schools as a viable tool to close the achievement gap and improve graduation rates.

 

In addition to funding seats for Carver students to take virtual courses, BellSouth will engage volunteers in various technology-based learning programs, such as job shadowing, Project:Connect, e-tutoring and e-mentoring.

 

The move follows an earlier partnership agreement between the BellSouth Foundation and the Southern Regional Education Board to help southern states increase middle grades and high school students’ access to quality academic courses through state-supported virtual schools. The alliance will help states focus on key policy issues, including online courses, teachers and funding. It also will provide information and resources that states can share as they address the instructional, management and technical issues involved in creating a state virtual school.

 

The SREB is the country’s first interstate compact for education. Many state virtual schools in the United States are in the SREB region, and 14 of the 16 SREB states will have a virtual school by the end of 2005.

 

Anderson says e-learning “can be an important strategy to help improve our high school drop out rates and turn the dismal statistics around.” He says BellSouth will also work to expand access by supporting efforts to provide affordable technology options to low-income students and their families, allowing them to take advantage of virtual courses and other e-learning opportunities.

 

The BellSouth Foundation is an endowed trust of BellSouth Corp. that is devoted to education in the South. It holds investments in excess of $57 million. Since its creation in 1986, the Foundation has funded more than 647 grants and operated numerous special initiatives. 

 

 

Justice Department is Reviewing Blackboard-WebCT Deal

 

The Department of Justice is reviewing Blackboard Inc.’s proposed acquisition of competitor WebCT, according to Blackboard in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Washington, D.C.-based Blackboard said it has received two requests for information as part of the department’s antitrust review of the merger plans.

 

Blackboard is slated to acquire WebCT in a cash transaction for $180 million, which values the offer at approximately $154 million, net of WebCT's August 31, 2005 cash balance of $26 million. WebCT and Blackboard have stated that they expect the transaction will close late this year or in early 2006.

 

The antitrust review was expected since the two companies dominate the post-secondary market for course-management software. Blackboard has predicted the acquisition would pass muster with the Justice Department even though the government has targeted small software markets as an area of pricing concern. “We feel confident that we will be able to get through the regulatory process,” said Blackboard general counsel Matthew Small. He said Blackboard and WebCT’s current market dominance don’t reflect the number of larger companies with e-learning products that are making inroads.

 

 

LOMA Selects WBT Systems TopClass Suite

 

LOMA, a research and educational association of more than 1,200 insurance and financial services companies from over 80 countries, has teamed with WBT Systems to implement WBT’s TopClass e-learning suite. The TopClass system will manage and deliver content, training and certification to LOMA’s far flung member companies. It will also allow LOMA to provide its members and customers with privately branded online learning sites through an application service provider model, said WBT.

 

LOMA is the world’s largest provider of education and training to the global insurance and financial services sector. Employees in organizations throughout the world enroll each year for more than 100,000 LOMA examinations covering insurance and financial services topics. To date, most of this training has been provided through self-study textbooks. “TopClass will allow us to leverage our learning development expertise to redeploy our extensive library of award-winning insurance and financial services content in a variety of formats and product offerings previously unavailable to our customers,” said Thomas P. Donaldson, LOMA chieftain. “It will allow LOMA customers to choose topics to meet specific learning needs and to add their own content to create co-branded courses and programs,” he added.

 

WBT Systems CEO Declan Kelly said the platform is “ideally suited to the certification, collaboration and lifelong learning needs of LOMA and its members.”

 

 

GP Strategies Settles Claims Against EDS

 

GP Strategies Corp., owner of training company General Physics Corp., has settled its remaining claims against Electronic Data Systems Corp., as successor to the Systemhouse subsidiaries of MCI Communications Corp., arising out of the company’s 1998 acquisition of Learning Technologies. EDS will make a cash payment of $9 million to GP Strategies. EDS has denied liability in the settlement and has stated that it agreed to settle to avoid the uncertainties of litigation.

 

In connection with the spin-off of National Patent Development Corp. by GP Strategies, which occurred in November 2004, GP Strategies agreed to make an additional capital contribution to National Patent Development in an amount equal to the first $5 million of any proceeds, and 50 percent of any proceeds in excess of $15 million, received with respect to the litigation claims and a related arbitration claim.


November 18, 2005

DuPont, Motorola Sign Key Outsourcing Contracts

Two industry giants, the DuPont Co. and Motorola Corp., have inked new outsourcing relationships to improve efficiencies in respective training-related and other functions. DuPont has signed a 13-year contract with the Convergys Corp. for comprehensive HR services, including training, for its employees and retirees worldwide. Motorola has signed General Physics Corp. to provide numerous outsourced training and vendor management services to meet workforce development needs throughout North America.

Under its contract, GP will select and manage training suppliers for Motorola along with providing certain training expertise, web-based tools and automated processes to Motorola employees. As part of the performance-based contract, GP is provided with incentives to procure and deliver training at reduced costs while leveraging its expertise to improve upon the significant returns already achieved by Motorola through its training investments. Scott Greenberg, GP's CEO, predicts that the relationship with Motorola "will serve as a model for future BPO opportunities with our customers."

Convergys says its contract should generate revenues in excess of $1.1 billion over its duration. DuPont expects to realize a 30 percent productivity improvement after five years from increased business performance through improved efficiency, reduced administrative costs, and better utilization of strategic workforce information. "DuPont will be able to utilize world-class employee and manager self-service tools as well as state-of-the-art service centers located around the globe," says Jim Borel, DuPont senior vice president, global Human Resources.

Convergys says it will manage worldwide learning services for DuPont's 60,000 employees in 70 countries and 30 languages. That includes courseware development, back office administration, governance & compliance, hosted and integrated e-learning LMS & content delivery platform, global learning infrastructure, and centralized training registration & management.

"DuPont wanted all of its employees around the world to use the same system to support every day operations as well as their personal needs," says Marianne B. Langlois, Vice President of Convergys Learning Solutions. "They wanted an IT environment that would support a set of united HR processes and systems while also integrating the functionalities provided by stand-alone applications. In addition, the IT environment needed to have a global architecture that would use DuPont global standards and be fully compliant with the requirements of privacy, information security, Sarbanes-Oxley, and other corporate and legal requirements."

She says DuPont's Performance Management and Employee Development team played a large role in the HRO selection process. DuPont was seeking a proven provider that had a robust global infrastructure and could leverage its existing investment in SAP's HCM. "Our ability to articulate the role of learning in talent and performance management, and drive integration of the two, was a key reason in winning the contract," says Langlois.

Langlois says Convergys will play a key role in increasing productivity within the HR function. The state-of-the-art HR global service delivery capability will increase speed, flexibility and variability in the HR process and ultimately reduce operating cost of the HR function. She says DuPont "is committed to blueprinting a truly global learning infrastructure to support its need to secure business agility."

Skills Shortages Loom for Auto, Utilities Sectors

The automotive and utility industries will soon suffer severe skills and manpower shortages, new studies predict.

Research from the Hay Group says utilities everywhere will be hit by massive retirements from the executive suite down to the lineman during the next four years. The likely retirees will include management, senior engineers, operations, nuclear operators, gas transmission specialists, and control supervisors. The Hay Group Utilities study found that on average these employees are older than their counterparts in other industries and represent approximately 50 percent to 60 percent of the industry's knowledge assets.

"The electric and gas industries could easily collapse if they don't put a plan in place for staffing, retention, recruitment, and training," says Mike Brown, Senior Consultant and Utilities Sector Leader for Hay Group.

The study claims that the problem goes beyond HR issues of retirement, recruitment, and retention and needs a comprehensive approach that includes academia. "The utility industry's staffing problems start at the undergraduate level," says the firm. "Universities are now graduating an average of 10 power engineers per state per year, compared to 2000 graduates in the 1980s. In contrast, such countries as India, China, and Russia graduate a significant number of power engineers each year."

The auto industry will also be hard hit by the looming skilled labor shortage, costing individual companies an average $50 million dollars over the next five years, claims new research commissioned by Advanced Technology Services, Inc. (ATS). Many of those projected costs will come from the expense of training and recruiting new employees, along with missed production, paid overtime and lost customer satisfaction, say respondents.

It claims that auto executives find the responsibility of searching for and recruiting skilled workers so difficult that 70 percent plan to outsource entire departments or job functions. Some 53 percent say outsourcing production machine maintenance would provide the most productivity gains.

NASA Nabs Knowledge from Top Engineers

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has tapped Remtech Services Inc., a division of systems integration consultant Ciber Inc., to help capture the workplace knowledge of senior engineers who are eyeing retirement. Remtech, a provider of information management/information technology (IM/IT) services to the federal government, is based in Newport News, Va.

Under the two-year project, Remtech will interview 15 engineers and help create courses for junior employees, says Robert Baxter, vice president of training technology. "We're trying to capture the lifelong experience of these folks while they're still in government," says Baxter. Interviews will be conducted in two stages by a Remtech project manager and a specialist with engineering training. They will include a taped and transcribed telephone interview followed by a more formal, video taped exchange.

The information will be developed into multi-day courses to be held at universities including Alabama A&M University, the University of Houston and University of Maryland, that provide graduate programs in aeronautics. Edited material will ultimately be available on-line along with interactive exercises, says Baxter.

The participants are designated NASA Discipline Experts (NDEs) in particular fields of study such as propulsion and avionics. They have been selected from NASA's Engineering and Safety Center (NESC), a unit created following the Challenger shuttle disaster to prevent future accidents. Remtech was reportedly selected over competing training providers because of its technical expertise and perceived ability to extract the most useful information from the experts.

The project, which began in July, includes student polling devices to help ensure that students apply the newly learned skills on their jobs.

November 4, 2005

Growth in Training Outsourcing will Continue in '06

Training outsourcing will continue its impressive growth in 2006, including an expanding role in HR outsourcing contracts, researchers predict. The forecast was part of an industry assessment delivered at ASTD's Outsourcing Learning: Trends and Strategies conference Oct. 18-19 in Arlington, Va. The event was co-sponsored by TrainingOutsourcing.com.

Howard M. Fletcher, associate partner of Learning Business Transformation Outsourcing for IBM, and Brenda Sugrue, senior director of research for ASTD, said organizations continue to become more strategic in their decisions by to outsource aspects of their learning function. They predicted that 29.1 percent of learning budgets would be outsourced in 2005, a figure that has jumped from 20.9 percent in 2001.

Much of the data presented to the meeting came from the 2005 State of the Learning Outsourcing Industry report conducted by IBM and ASTD. Fletcher said a "progressively larger training footprint" within HR outsourcing deals, typified by a new comprehensive contract recently signed by IBM.

The two-day meeting included perspectives and case studies by numerous training outsourcing suppliers. They included Accenture Learning, Intrepid Learning Services, Raytheon Professional Services, General Physics Corporation, KnowledgePlanet, Element K, Convergys, Delta College Corporate Services and others. Sessions included legal and financial considerations of training outsourcing, and one that featured the CEOs of six outsourcing firms.

More than 120 attendees received an inside perspective on enterprise-wide training contracts from both customers and suppliers. Those partnerships included the General Motors/Raytheon Professional Services partnership, the GE Consumer Finance/Accenture Learning contract, Boeing Corp.'s partnership with Intrepid Learning, the Texas Instruments/GP contract, Marsh Inc.'s contract with KnowledgePlanet for back-office services, and the U.S. Postal Service's partnership with Element K to deliver sales training.

Vitesse-Provinent Merger Creates Large Content Provider

Further consolidation in e-learning content development marketplace has resulted from the merger of Toronto-based Provinent Corporation with VitesseLearning, Morristown, N.J. The combined entity calls itself "the largest independent company in the enterprise learning field" with $US20 million in combined billings. It will concentrate on life sciences, financial services, retail, manufacturing and public utilities markets, along with Provinent's government clientele.

"This merger responds to the technology-based learning market's continuing growth, allowing us to offer an expanded product set that delivers the full spectrum of learning services - from strategic consulting and curriculum design to instructional and visual strategy, development and delivery of blended learning programs and ongoing deployment support," says Ted Root, former Provinent CEO who becomes CEO of the new VitesseLearning. The combined entity "provides increased geographic reach and allows us to fully utilize and grow our current locations, leveraging our assets and creating the best solutions to meet market needs," he says.

Philip McCrea, president of the new VitesseLearning, says the merger "expands our ability to invest in creating continuously improving value for our customers." New strengths will include greater scalability of client solutions, he says.

The company will operate under the VitesseLearning name with Canadian offices in Toronto; Ottawa; Fredericton, New Brunswick; and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. U.S. offices will include Morristown, San Francisco, Baltimore and Boston. The combined company will have approximately 200 employees throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Justin Ford, managing partner of San Francisco-based training consulting firm Enterprise Learning Associates, predicts the merger will enhance marketplace provider options, bringing to market "a multi-national player with technical expertise, diversified leadership and service capabilities that should strengthen as well as broaden overall product offerings."

Intrepid Provides Training Outsourcing for Microsoft

Training outsourcing provider Intrepid Learning Solutions, Inc. has announced a multi-year contract with the MSN Division at Microsoft Corp. for sales training services.

Its new duties for the software giant include learning strategy and assessment; curriculum design, development and maintenance; instructor-led training delivery and management; training administration services; and training evaluation, measurement, and reporting. To meet Microsoft's needs, Intrepid is employing its Sales Performance Solution™, a sales training framework that combines Intrepid's expertise with industry best practices.

"We are delighted that MSN has chosen Intrepid to provide training services aimed at driving business results," says Intrepid President and CEO Christopher Hedrick. "Earning this business builds on our success with other clients and demonstrates Intrepid's leadership in crafting innovative, pragmatic outsourcing solutions that address critical market needs."

LCMS Market is Enjoying a 30 Percent Growth, Says Bersin

Some 42 percent of organizations that employ LMSs are planning to acquire some type of LCMS system, helping propel the LCMS market to an expected 30 percent gain next year, says the latest report from Bersin & Associates. Most of that growth will be in the adoption of LCMS suites and best-of-breed solutions that help organizations more rapidly develop e-learning content, improve content authoring, and manage their learning assets, says the firm.

The report, called "What Works in Learning Content Management Systems: Industry Trends, Best Practices, and Vendor Profiles," looks at factors driving adoption of LCMSs, purchasing considerations, the differences between LCMS suites and stand-alone solutions, implementation considerations, and acquisition costs.

The study profiles 10 vendors of LCMS solutions: Eedo, GeoLearning, Intelladon, Learn.com, Outstart, QMind, Saba, Sumtotal, VuePoint, and WBT Systems. Market maps compare vendors' feature sets and application strengths to help buyers identify the right solution for their needs. The report also includes detailed case studies detailing implementation and use of content management systems by the American Heart Association, Galileo International, Greene Consulting, and Norfolk Southern.

"Now that LMSs are becoming more widely adopted, the implementation of LCMSs is the next natural step for those organizations looking to expand, control and standardize learning content across the enterprise," said Chris Howard, principal analyst. He said the research is aimed at helping organizations understand the role of LCMSs and how to select a solution that meets their particular learning application needs. It is based on 325 survey responses from e-learning managers and content developers representing companies of all sizes and vertical markets.

Among its findings:

  • General content management systems are not meeting the needs of training organizations. Companies recognize that the management of learning-related content requires different feature sets than those products developed for managing website and general corporate content.
  • While organizations are initially attracted to LCMS suites, those solutions which offer integrated LMS and LCMS capabilities, many move on to specialized LCMS solutions as business needs become more advanced and ambitious.
  • The value of an LCMS increases significantly over time. While some cost and operational efficiencies are recognized immediately following implementation, significant return on investment occurs later, after the system has been used for one or more years.


October 21, 2005

Saba-Centra Merger Creates Blended Learning Powerhouse

Saba's proposed acquisition of Web conferencing and virtual classroom provider Centra Software will create an enterprise learning titan capable of delivering on the promise of a complete blended learning solution, claim the two companies following their agreement to combine forces. The combined entity will present a "compelling product roadmap that will enable us to have conversations about human capital management with CEOs," they maintain.

Saba CEO Bobby Yazdani says his firm's $56.6 million acquisition of longtime marketing partner Centra will create "the world's largest enterprise learning software company." Under the arrangement, Yazdani will retain his position while Centra CEO and Chairman Leon Navickas will join the Saba Board of Directors.

The move comes on the heels of Saba's acquisition of LMS provider Thinq, SumTotal's acquisition of LMS supplier Pathlore, and KnowledgePlanet's acquisition of KnowledgeImpact.

Saba said the transaction is structured as a merger of Centra with a wholly owned subsidiary of Saba and is intended to be tax free with respect to the Saba stock to be received in the transaction by Centra stockholders. The consideration per share to be received by the stockholders of Centra will be comprised of $0.663 in cash and Saba stock at a fixed exchange ratio of 0.354 of a share of Saba stock for each share of Centra stock.

Navickas said that following the merger's finalization, the first big step will be the introduction of new software capabilities that customers can install on-premises and on-demand. It will especially target small and medium sized businesses with subscription-based HR capital management solutions modeled by salesforce.com, he said.

The proposed acquisition has drawn mixed reviews from analysts and others. They include analyst Cornelia Weggen with Robert W. Baird & Co., who noted its attractive price (0.8x revenue) but suggested that it offered few obvious synergies or clear cut advantages to customers since the two firms have for years been integration and marketing partners.

Said Weggen: "Despite its appeal to corporate training departments, the virtual classroom business has been subsumed by the Web-based conferencing market dominated by WebEx and Microsoft. Furthermore, virtual classrooms and e-meeting environments are part of many integrated solutions, including LMS providers, LCMS vendors, Web conferencing providers, and larger enterprise software solution providers, making it a difficult add-on sale for a single solution vendor."

She feared the acquisition might even slow Saba's reviving momentum since Saba must now concern itself with preserving Centra's revenue while selling its own product. Weggen noted that Centra has never been profitable and has experienced zero compound annual revenue growth since 2001.

Among other reaction:

  • Josh Bersin, Bersin & Associates: "By closely integrating Centra's virtual classroom, content management, and development environment with Saba, clients will have an easy-to-use, easy-to-manage environment for any form of blended learning program. We believe that the value of this solution is high: organizations can save millions of dollars on systems integration, easily deploy an easy-to-use learning environment, and obtain detailed reporting and completion information in a reliable manner.

    "Any Centra customer who already has Saba should be thrilled. The product integration should become deeper and richer quickly. Customers of Centra who may have wondered whether Centra was committed to R&D in the e-learning market should also feel better -- Centra now has more R&D and financial capabilities to help the company survive and thrive among the live web collaboration giants.

    "The collaboration market is crowded and changing quickly. Webex, Microsoft, Skillsoft, and Macromedia/Adobe have all thrown down the gauntlet. Each is focused heavily at delivering an integrated, high value, easy-to-use solution for enterprise live collaboration and training. Now that Saba-Centra is nearly a $US100 million company and is committed to the web collaboration market, they must stay vigilant and invest heavily to make sure that they do not miss 'the next big thing.'"
  • Gartner Research: "Expect this deal to result in more collaborative and comprehensive e-learning suites from Saba. Saba can use Centra's core strengths, especially its virtual-classroom environment, to broaden its e-learning suite capabilities and to compete more aggressively against other e-learning vendors, such as SumTotal.

    "This acquisition also may affect adoption of e-learning products from enterprise resource planning and HR vendors, such as Oracle and SAP, that are trying to increase their e-learning market shares. Saba's competitors will need to improve their classroom capabilities or reinforce their partnerships with other providers to retain leadership status. Centra's customers should expect the combined company to continue to operate its products separately for the immediate future. Gartner expects to see a combined product and more incentives for Centra customers to move to Saba's integrated suite by 2007."
  • Elearnity: "Centra's core strengths as a leading live learning platform provider will add value to Saba's proposition as it competes with the broader e-learning suite capabilities of SumTotal, and tries to slow the march of the ERP/HR vendors in the learning management space.

    "     Saba needs to create a clear added value for Centra customers to move to the integrated suite over time. For Saba to really gain from the deal they have to extend their market for Saba, not just sell Centra to Saba customers and keep selling Centra independently. This may prove more challenging, and risks marginalising many non-Saba Centra customers in the medium to long term. Time will tell.

    "Both Saba and Centra are very dependent on service revenues, and are seeing declining software licences as a proportion of their overall business. This worries us, and we think should worry Saba, as we believe it reinforces as well as reflects the narrowness of their core LMS footprint. While acquiring Centra expands their software portfolio, it does not address the potential weakness in the core of their business."

SumTotal Completes Pathlore Acquisition

SumTotal Systems, Inc. has completed its $US48 million acquisition of LMS provider Pathlore Software Corp. The company said the move results in an entity with critical mass in the industry, including 17 million licensed users in over 1,500 customer organizations. It will produce more than $100 million in expected annualized revenue and approximately $10 million in expected annual cash flow, said SumTotal.

In addition to offering Pathlore customers access to SumTotal's broader enterprise suite of product capabilities and expanded global support, the acquisition will expand R&D capacity and ensure accelerated product and services innovations, the company said. The merger also will broaden SumTotal's reach into key industry segments, including state government, health care and the rapidly growing middle-market. The Pathlore customer base includes more than 100 healthcare organizations as well as more than 200 government agencies.

R. Andrew Eckert will continue as SumTotal's CEO. Pathlore president and CEO Steve Thomas has joined the SumTotal Board of Directors and will remain actively involved with the combined company, the firm said.

Blackboard-WebCT Merger Would Link Two Academic E-learning Firms

Two online learning companies that serve a combined 3,700 clients in the academic community have agreed to join forces. Blackboard Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based provider of enterprise software and services, will acquire Lynnfield, Mass.-based WebCT, a provider of collaboration and other e-learning tools for higher education. Purchase price is $US180 million.

The move will create a powerful platform for learning environments used by colleges, universities, schools and other education providers, says Blackboard CEO Michael Chasen. He says it will remove barriers and spur collaboration across institutions by developers and end-users at a critical time in the evolution of e-learning technologies.

Blackboard said it will enhance and support the existing products of both companies. It also will leverage the Blackboard Building Blocks architecture and WebCT's PowerLinks framework as the joint foundation for interfaces that will allow the existing product lines to interoperate with one another and with other applications. Blackboard will ultimately incorporate the best features and usability characteristics from the two product lines into a new, standards-based product set that will incorporate a scalable, architecture, the use of Web services, unparalleled ease of use, and flexible customization features.

 September 9, 2005

WebEx Provides Free Collaboration and Web Meeting Services to Relief Organizations and Businesses Affected by Hurricane Katrina

WebEx Communications, a provider of collaborative web meeting applications, has created the WebEx Katrina Relief program to deliver services and support to organizations serving Katrina victims and small businesses affected by the hurricane.

The free services are designed to help organizations improve coordination of their relief efforts and businesses replace lost IT infrastructure capabilities. The service capabilities include web meetings, secure document sharing, group scheduling, task management, database applications, and contact directories. In addition, relief organizations looking to raise awareness of specific aspects of their program or to train volunteers can host free online events and training sessions. WebEx event producers will help organizations pull together and host these online events.

"Our thoughts are with the people affected by Hurricane Katrina," said Subrah Iyar, CEO of WebEx Communications. "WebEx and its employees want to help, and we hope our Katrina relief program will give people some of the tools they need to start rebuilding."

A WebEx Katrina Relief resource page is available at www.webex.com/go/katrina.

Results of the Workforce Investment Act Unknown

Class Notes, a weekly education investment newsletter published by the Robert W. Baird Education Services team, reports that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently completed a study on the results and current state of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). WIA was passed by congress in 1998 in an effort to create a system connecting employment, education, and training services to better match job seekers to labor market needs.

GAO found that local workforce boards used an estimated 40 percent of the WIA funds they had available in program year 2003 to obtain training services for WIA participants. Nationally, local boards had approximately $2.4 billion in WIA funds that were available to serve adults and dislocated workers during program year 2003 and used about $929 million for training activities. The remaining funds paid for other program costs as well as administrative costs. GAO estimates that 416,000 WIA participants received training during the year; however, this count may include some individuals more than once, as some individuals may have received more than one type of training.

Disturbingly, the GAO study found that very little is known on a national level about the outcomes of those being trained, as the Department of Labor's national participant database has been found to be incomplete and unverified. Additionally, data generally cannot be compared across states or local areas because of variations in data definitions. Thus, GAO concluded that it is impossible to tell what types of training are the most successful and how the outcomes from training compare to outcomes from other services.

Emerging Trends in Learning Outsourcing in Asia Pacific

The Cape Group recently released a research study that examines outsourcing trends in the Asia Pacific. Conducted during June and July 2005, the report finds that companies there are showing an increased interest in outsourcing some of their learning function but that they are lagging the U.S. market in terms of commitment to comprehensive outsourcing.

The report also reveals that the drivers for outsourcing corporate training functions are similar to those in other parts of the world: cost reductions, increased learning efficiency through the use of technology, and competitive pressures are forcing companies to increase and adapt the skill level of their employees as quickly as possible. However, unlike in the US, Asia Pacific companies are still reluctant to outsource the entire learning function in favor of outtasking certain parts of their training, predominantly content and technology infrastructure.

Despite this relatively slow uptake in fully managed learning outsourcing, the study reports that the market in Asia Pacific is still growing due to the increasing number of organizations outsourcing part of their learning function.

The report includes a profile of each of the learning outsourcing providers interviewed during the course of the research, highlighting their service offerings and the market segments in which they operate. For more information, go to www.capegroupglobal.com/research.html.

Hosted LMS Study Conducted by Bersin & Associates Available From GeoLearning

GeoLearning announces the availability of "Choosing an ASP for Your LMS," the latest industry study from e-learning research firm Bersin & Associates. Researched and written by Bersin analyst Chris Howard, the paper explores the many business reasons an organization might consider an application service provider (ASP). Advantages of an ASP model cited in the Bersin paper include shorter deployment times, improved execution and focus, reduced project risk, easier access to new technology, and lower costs. "Enterprise-wide applications such as LMSs can be deployed without installing any new technology," says Howard. "This makes LMSs viable in cases where they may have been cost prohibitive."

The report outlines the pros and cons of the hosted model to help buyers decide which option will best suite their needs, and also provides a series of questions to help buyers distinguish between LMS vendors that are true ASPs and vendors who only offer ASP as a side-business. The Bersin research also dispels the myth that Asps are primarily used by small and medium-sized organizations. The paper finds that even large organizations can and do benefit from outsourcing the business applications required to deploy, run and maintain a learning management system, including hardware, software, content integration and help desk support.

The ASP LMS study is part of Bersin & Associates' What Works™ series, primary research that offers learning practitioners factual and practical insights that improve program effectiveness and results, reduce costs, and avoid time-consuming and costly mistakes. The study can be downloaded from www.geolearning.com/chooseASP.

New Contracts

  • Driven Systems Selects SumTotal. SumTotal™ Systems announced that new partner, Driven Systems, a leading provider of consulting services and solutions based in Brighton, England, has selected the SumTotal Enterprise Suite as the backbone of a comprehensive e-learning offering for its growing roster of commercial and public-sector clients in the United Kingdom.
  • GP to Provide E-Learning Services to IRS. Performance improvement solutions provider General Physics Corporation (GP), a subsidiary of GP Strategies Corporation, was selected by Gov Online Learning Center (GoLearn) to integrate, launch and host the US Internal Revenue Service's EEDO Knowledgeware Corporation ForceTen(TM) Learning Content Management System (LCMS).
  • Business Learning Bank and Saba Streamline Enterprise Learning in Japan. Saba announces an alliance with Business Learning Bank (BLB), a human resource development outsourcing service, to provide comprehensive turnkey learning systems to enterprises in Japan. The alliance combines Saba's HCM software solutions with BLB's ASP model and learning portals to offer Japan-based corporations, commercial organizations and universities an enterprise-class learning solution covering the entire learning cycle.
  • PHH Corporation Selects GeoLearning. PHH Corporation will use the GeoMaestro™ learning management suite to deliver training content and manage enterprise-wide human capital performance for its 8,000 employees as part of a three-year learning services contract with GeoLearning.
  • Element K Awarded GoLearn Contract. Element K announces their designation by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) as a provider of online training content for the GoLearn Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) program. With 23 years experience delivering e-learning services, and content, Element K now offers its wide spectrum of results-oriented, Section 508 compliant content to federal agencies under Specialized Technical Area 2 of the GoLearn initiative.

August 19, 2005

Gartner Releases New Report: Magic Quadrant 2005: E-Learning Suites

The latest Gartner report, "Magic Quadrant 2005: E-Learning Suites," released August 15, finds that vendors continue to expand the functional ity of their products, as well as market presence.

The 2005 report reviewed e-learning suites from 18 vendors, which was reduced from 24 in 2004. In addition, the number of the companies making it into the leader quadrant fell from seven to six. To develop the E-Learning Suites Magic Quadrant, Gartner assessed vendors on their completeness of vision and ability to execute, placing them in one of four quadrants: Niche Players, Challengers, Visionaries, and Leaders.

According to Gartner, "Vendors in the leader quadrant have the highest combined measures of ability to execute and completeness of vision. They are doing well and prepared for the future. They have strong channel partners, presence in multiple geographies, consistent financial performance, broad platform support, good customer support, the most-comprehensive and scalable products and the ability to deliver all of the key e-learning suite capabilities. Strong vision reflects a solid product strategy, combined with the management vision to make e-learning a focused initiative."

In its assessment of the e-learning suite market overall, Gartner reported, "The e-learning suite market is evolving rapidly, as companies now demand more comprehensive suites." According to the report, "When you evaluate e-learning vendors and their suites, focus on modularity (that is, whether you can choose which individual components to implement first, and whether you can easily add new components later on); integration (among the components within the suite and with third-party e-learning products and business applications); and personalization (the ability to tailor e-learning implementations to suit the particular needs of departments or individuals). With this approach, you can focus on obtaining modules that are more relevant to your business goals and can, therefore, produce better results."

Gartner's Magic Quadrant series offers graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and it does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the Leaders quadrant

To purchase the report, go to www.gartner.com.

Lifelong Learning Becoming a Reality

Class Notes, a weekly education investment newsletter published by the Robert W. Baird Education Services team, reports that two in five adults participated in formal education courses or activities for work-related reasons and nearly 1 in 10 were in degree or certificate programs at colleges or universities in 2002-3, according to a U.S. Education Department study just released.

The study reports that 40 percent of those aged 16 or older said that they participated in formal work-related educational activities. Thirty-three percent took work-related courses, presumably through their employers; 9 percent were in college or university programs for work-related reasons; and 2 percent have taken part in vocational or technical diploma or degree programs.

Eighty-eight percent of the adults who reported participating in college or university programs said that they did so to learn completely new skills or knowledge. Other reasons they gave included maintaining or improving skills that they already had (80 percent), helping change their job or career fields (73 percent), getting or keeping a state or industry certificate or license (36 percent), receiving a promotion or pay raise (32 percent) or because their employer required or recommended it (15 percent).

Employee Recruiting and Retention Top Priority for Senior Executives, Says Accenture Study

Attracting and retaining skilled staff ranks highest on executive agendas for 2005, according to a global study released by Accenture in late July. The study, which Accenture conducts annually, comprised interviews with 425 senior executives at leading organizations in North America, Europe, and Asia to identify and prioritize the issues of greatest concern to senior management, understand how their priorities shift over time, and identify key forces behind the issues.

Workforce improvement-issues dominated the top priorities, comprising 4 of the 10 most-selected concerns, including the top two items. For instance, the greatest number of respondents, 35 percent, selected "attracting and retaining skilled staff," followed by 33 percent who selected "changing organizational cultural and employee attitudes." Other workforce issues in the top 10 are "improving workforce performance" (selected by 28 percent to rank 7th) and "developing employees into capable leaders" (selected by 26 percent to rank 10th).

"The most powerful theme emerging this year is a strong and consistent focus on people," said Peter Cheese, global managing partner of Accenture's Human Performance practice. "Even though the business conversations have centered on global competition and the need for execution, business leaders are increasingly aware that nothing happens unless people-talent is engaged in the right way."

The top 10 current business issues for senior executives:

  1. Attracting and retaining skilled staff, 35%
  2. Changing organizational culture and employee attitudes, 33%
  3. Acquiring new customers, 32%
  4. Developing new processes and products to stay ahead of the competition, 29%
  5. Increasing customer loyalty and retention, 29%
    Managing risk, 29%
  6. Improving workforce performance, 28%
  7. Increasing shareholder value, 27%
  8. Using IT to reduce costs and create value, 27%
  9. Being flexible and adaptable to rapidly changing market conditions, 26%
  10. Developing employees into capable leaders, 26%.

 August 5, 2005

SumTotal to Acquire Pathlore

 

SumTotal Systems and Pathlore Software Corporation, two leading enterprise software companies in the learning and business performance management market, recently announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement for SumTotal to acquire Pathlore for approximately $48 million. At the closing of the acquisition, Pathlore shareholders will receive approximately $29 million in cash and 4 million shares of SumTotal Systems common stock.

 

According to industry analysts, the acquisition brings together the leaders in revenue and customer count. The combination is expected to offer Pathlore customers access to SumTotal’s broader enterprise suite of product capabilities and expanded global support as well as extend SumTotal’s reach into key segments, including state government, health care, and the rapidly growing middle-market. The Pathlore customer base includes more than 100 healthcare organizations, as well as government agencies in 38 of the 50 United States.

 

The press release reports that key benefits of the acquisition include

  • increased R&D capacity
  • enhanced global and vertical market support and delivery capabilities
  • enhanced scale and stability with over $100 million in expected annualized revenue
  • increased investment capability with approximately $10 million in expected annual cash flow
  • expanded footprint with over 1,500 customers worldwide.

 

According to Andy Eckert, CEO of SumTotal, “We believe that [Pathlore’s] growth, significant revenue base, and profitability profile could help us reach a critical threshold of revenue scale and profitability for our customers, partners and investors. With similar philosophies and cultures, complementary technology and offerings, and an unmatched footprint, we believe the combined company will be a true enterprise-class player in our industry with the scale to drive innovation and customer satisfaction in a profitable manner.”

 

“We believe the combination of these two strong companies will expand the scope of our operations and ensure that we will have the capabilities and financial strength to successfully serve our customers around the globe,” said Steve Thomas, president and CEO of Pathlore.

 

“The combined company’s number one priority will continue to be customer care and success,” said Eckert. “We will spend even more time on applications development and customer support. Both Steve and I believe that our integration plans and these increased investments will help ensure our customers’ success. We look forward to working with a broad team that represents the best of what both companies currently offer.”

 

E-Learning as Effective as Classroom Training

 

The August issue of T+D magazine reports on research from the Department of Defense’s Advanced Distribute Learning Initiative (ADL) and the University of Tulsa, which finds that e-learning is as effective as classroom offerings.

 

In their work, Traci Sitzmann, Robert Wisher, Kurt Kraiger, and David Stewart conducted a meta-analysis of 96 previously conducted studies that compared the effects of Web-based and classroom instruction. Most of the instruction in the 96 studies targeted declarative knowledge (i.e., knowledge of facts, concepts and principles) rather than procedural knowledge (i.e., practical skills). E-learning and classroom learning were found to be equally effective when the content and learners were similar in both the Web-based and the classroom courses. Also, learners were equally satisfied with the two methods of instruction. According to Brenda Sugrue, ASTD’s senior director of research, the “no significant difference” finding is common when comparing the effectiveness of any two instructional media.

 

However, Sitzmann, Wisher, Kraiger, and Stewart found that e-learning was more effective than classroom instruction when learners had more control over the content, sequence, or pace of the material. Learner control did not affect satisfaction with e-learning. This finding bodes well for modularized asynchronous e-learning and on-demand access to informational content where learners have, by default, more control over when and what they learn.

 

A full report of this study is available in the ASTD 2005 Research-to-Practice Conference Proceedings, available by contacting ASTDResearch@astd.org.

 

Solid Growth of Live E-Collaboration Market Continues

 

Gartner has published, "Forecast: Web Conferencing and Team Collaboration Software, Worldwide, 2005-2009," which finds that the growing demand within organizations for real-time and team-based collaboration technologies will drive the worldwide web conferencing and team collaboration software market to $681.7 million in 2005, a 16 percent increase over 2004.

 

Gartner reports that by 2008, the market is expected to reach $1.15 billion, a CAGR of 19 percent. While still in an early adoption phase, the markets for web conferencing and team collaboration are converging and transitioning, with vendors continuously expanding and integrating their functionalities, making their software increasingly central to corporate business processes.

 

Collaboration technologies have been used most frequently in North America, which along with Europe, is expected to lead worldwide growth. Cultural differences, such as a preference for face-to-face meetings, will continue to hamper adoption rates in Japan and Asia/Pacific, as well as Latin America, according to Gartner.

 

For more information, go to the Gartner website.

 

Workers Spending Too Long Searching, Says LearningGuide Survey

 

Forty seven percent of workers are spending more than four hours per week searching for information, according to a recent survey carried out by LearningGuide.

 

LearningGuide, a U.K.-based workplace performance support company, asked visitors to its website how much time workers in their organization spent searching for information per week. The results showed that people are spending a large amount of their working time, 32 percent spending four to five hours per week and 15 percent spending over five hours, searching for information.

 

According to LearningGuide’s Alfred Remmits: “Workers are getting bogged down with change and information overload, particularly as a result of new and updated applications, and management is failing to sort it out. Our survey supports other research studies into working patterns that have shown workers often spending between half and one working-day per week finding out how to do things correctly and looking for information. It’s an increasing trend.”

 

“More training and bigger helpdesks is unlikely to be the answer. Simply pouring more of the scarce training budget into how management has traditionally sorted out knowledge issues, using more courses and e-learning, is unlikely solve this,” added Remmits, who in the last five years has pioneered the use of electronic performance support as a means of resolving user adoption of new processes and applications.

 

“Workers are less willing to spend time on training courses when queries about working procedures or applications emerge. Quicker, immediate answers are needed. Helpdesks are often overloaded with queries from users who are increasingly learning ‘informally’, turning to co-workers for answers, searching the network and of course clicking on Google.”

 

Remmits believes that the informal learning, taking place in the workplace, needs greater control and involvement from the traditional training department, so that workers follow their company’s procedures correctly.

 

For more, go to www.learningguide.co.uk.

July 22, 2005

Federal Funding to Drive Videoconferencing Adoption in Government, Distance Education, and Healthcare Verticals

New analysis from the Frost & Sullivan report, “U.S. Vertical Markets and Applications for Videoconferencing,” reveals that revenue in this market totaled $388.0 million in 2004 and expects to reach $1,153.9 million in 2011.

 

While the self-funded corporate vertical expects to be a huge revenue driver for videoconferencing markets in the United States, contributions from other verticals such as government, distance education, and healthcare, depend largely on federal, state, and local funding. "There are no specific funds for acquiring videoconferencing technology in the government vertical," says Frost & Sullivan Program Leader S.V. Purushothaman. "This technology will be funded through overall technology acquisition and upgrade programs."

 

According to the report, the government has always been keen to deploy videoconferencing devices and approximately 11 to 12 percent of the total defense budget expects to be used for IT expenditure.  Erratic government funding for the distance education and healthcare verticals also hampers revenue generation from these markets. Vendors can help improve this situation by increasingly lobbying to influence E-rate-specific legislation, press for higher education grants, and pass legislations encouraging adoption of telemedicine.

"Lobbying efforts in healthcare can focus on initiatives for a national regulation on telemedicine, standardized state regulation plan that is accepted by a majority of the states and proper coverage of telemedicine in private insurer health coverage plans," notes Purushothaman.

 

The relatively less complex corporate vertical has been beneficial to the videoconferencing market mainly due to its need for converged and collaborative conferencing solutions. The convergence of conferencing technologies such as video, audio, web, and the ever-increasing need for collaborative applications, creates new opportunities for videoconferencing vendors. They need to understand the future need for integrated conferencing applications and accordingly incorporate their offerings with that of complementary vendors or engage in acquisitions.

 

While stand-alone videoconferencing solutions have not reached the expected critical mass, the audio conferencing segment is approaching saturation and is showing stable single digit growth rates. Web conferencing, on the other hand, is in the early growth phase and is experiencing huge success among enterprises. Web conferencing sessions also provide a successful attach rate for audio conferencing.

 

Analysts agree that videoconferencing will find far greater success if it integrates with audio and web conferencing. Although videoconferencing vendors have successfully penetrated individual segments, they have not had much success in the small and medium business (SMB) segment. Their main focus is the large enterprises market. "Once the easy revenue streams in the large enterprise segment dry up, vendors will be compelled to use effective product and pricing strategies for the SMB market," observes Purushothaman.

 

“U.S. Vertical Markets and Applications for Videoconferencing” is part of the Conferencing & Collaboration subscription and looks at the U.S. vertical markets in which videoconferencing has found significant adoption, namely corporate, government, distance education, and healthcare. For more information, go to www.frost.com.

 

 

 

New Bersin Report Looks at Success Factors of High-Impact Learning Organizations

 

Centralization, use of shared services, CLO-level authority, and in-house consultants among factors that contribute to success of learning organizations, according to Bersin &  Associates’s latest report, “The High-Impact Learning Organization: What Works™ in the Management, Operations, and Governance of Corporate Training.” 

 

“This research has helped us identify clear commonalities among high-performing training organizations,” said Josh Bersin, president of Bersin & Associates. “These critical factors are important to any organization committed to employee training and skills development because they can help maximize investments in time, resources, and expertise.  Training and HR executives can use this study to guide training-related decisions, refine budgeting processes, refine organizational structures, and work more effectively with business units throughout the enterprise.” 

 

Examples of factors that promote effectiveness and efficiency of corporate training include the following:

 

  • Centralized budget management, often overseen by steering committees, eliminates the purchase of duplicate content and drives vendor consolidation. The most efficient organizations track all training dollars, whether spent centrally or by business units.  A CLO or other high-level executive often manages the budget and may even penalize departments for unauthorized spending.
  • The most effective organizations invest in e-learning and related technologies in order to increase reach, range, and impact--not to reduce costs.  These organizations move beyond “courseware” to blended programs, learning integrated into business workflows and learning on-demand.
  • Organizations that spend the time and money implementing an enterprise-wide LMS have much higher effectiveness and efficiency.  These LMS investments tend to take two to three years to fully implement and they are supported with a set of shared services for content integration and administration.  Enterprise LMSs provide detailed data on the activity, efficiency, utilization, and impact of training investments – providing the foundation for solid decision making.

 

On the flip side, here are some examples of factors that can negatively impact a training organization:

 

  • Centralized training organizations that are inadequately staffed and budgeted not only fail in meeting the needs of business units but often “open the door” to unauthorized and uncontrolled training-related spending by business units.  In the long run, this approach can cost a company much more.
  • A lack of focus on the development of enterprise-wide standards and templates for training significantly weakens a training organization.  The most effective organizations invest most of their resources into leveraging their instructional design skills and training experience throughout the enterprise. 
  • A failure to focus on a measurement strategy impedes decision making.  The most effective organizations have a team member who understands assessments, analytics, databases, and business measurements.   

 

Other factors evaluated include staff and resource allocation; the designation of CLOs; organizational structure and management of training; use of shared services for  technology, content development, and outsourcing; role of learning/performance consulting; measurement and reporting; partnering with HR; chargeback and allocation models; and the impact of steering committees or councils. 

 

The study, which is based on interviews with learning executives and detailed surveys from 350 global companies, was sponsored by Peoplesoft, Wells Fargo, Plateau, and Saba. 

For more details on the “The High-Impact Learning Organization,” including a table of contents, go to http://www.bersin.com/research/high_impact.asp. 

 

New Contracts

 

·          BT and Accenture have signed a five-year, £70 million (US$127 million) business processing outsourcing (BPO) contract for learning services. This contract renews a previous learning agreement between the two companies and complements the 10-year (US$575 million) human resources outsourcing contract signed by BT and Accenture in January 2005.
 
The services to be provided under the new contract include technical and safety training around switching, data, transmission, and network technologies. In addition, the contract covers the design, development and delivery of sales force and management training programs for BT employees.  The services will be delivered by Accenture Learning, an Accenture business that provides outsourced learning solutions to government agencies and corporate enterprises world-wide. The new contract will take effect August 1, 2005.

  • Plateau Systems announced that it has been awarded prime contractor status to provide learning and employee performance management software, implementation services, and application and content hosting to federal agencies under the Gov Online Learning Center (GoLearn) initiative.

    Plateau was originally selected by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in 2002 to provide its learning management system (LMS) to federal agencies through GoLearn. Because of Plateau’s three-year track record of successful deployments under GoLearn, OPM again selected Plateau as a provider of LMS software, and has expanded the scope of Plateau’s offerings to federal agencies. Under the new award, Plateau will be a prime contractor, providing software applications including learning management, employee performance management, virtual learning, learning content management and other supporting capabilities.
  • SumTotal Systems, along with partner International Software Systems Inc. (ISSI), announced that it has been awarded two contracts by the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to support its GoLearn program.

    The first GoLearn contract awarded to SumTotal and ISSI under Specialized Technical Area 1, LMS/LCMS solutions, is for SumTotal’s Total LMS and Total LCMS. The second is for SumTotal’s TotalInformation, TotalCollaboration and TotalAccess modules under Specialized Technical Area 3, Collaboration Tools & Human Capital Performance Applications. SumTotal will team with ISSI, which has extensive experience developing, customizing, and configuring learning management systems, to deliver the solutions and services.
  • GeoLearning Inc. announced that the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has selected the GeoMaestro™ learning management suite to deliver training content and manage enterprise-wide human capital performance for 14,000 of its employees. GeoLearning is supporting DHS’s new human resources management system, MAXHR. The new system is focused on building a high performing workforce and creating an environment that enhances recruitment, retention and the development of superior talent. The GeoMaestro platform is being used to deliver and manage training and development programs for DHS employees.

    In addition to the GeoMaestro learning management system, DHS will deploy GeoLearning’s web-based Class & Event Scheduler to manage traditional instructor-led training. GeoLearning will also provide Internet hosting, security and maintenance services, vendor management, professional services, and 24x7 Help Desk support for DHS employees and administrators as part of the learning services contract.

 

 

July 8, 2005

 

Conferencing and Team Collaboration Software Market Will Exceed $1.1 Billion by 2008, Says Gartner

 

A new report from Gartner, "Forecast: Web Conferencing and Team Collaboration Software, Worldwide, 2005-2009," finds that the growing demand within organizations for real-time and team-based collaboration technologies will drive the worldwide web conferencing and team collaboration software market to $681.7 million in 2005, a 16 percent increase over 2004, according to Gartner, Inc. By 2008, the market is expected to reach $1.1 billion.

"The markets for web conferencing and team-based collaboration, while still in an early phase of adoption, are converging and transitioning," says Tom Eid, vice president and research director for Gartner. "Vendors are providing more integrated collaboration functionality spanning a variety of content, communication and collaboration technologies. Overall adoption will continue to increase as these technologies become more integrated with business processes."

Gartner analysts said other forms of collaboration (not included in this forecast), such as instant messaging (IM) and video conferencing, will also see increasing demand. IM is anticipated to become as popular as email and, through the use of international standards, interoperate with other communication types. Video conferencing will evolve to the desktop to support ad hoc conversations and become better integrated with Web conferencing and IM.

Web conferencing and team collaboration technologies will be provided as part of line-of-business applications, as well as ways to augment information access technologies, such as portals, helping to spur the growth of the market during the next few years (see Table 1).

Table 1
Worldwide Web Conferencing and Team Collaboration Software Market New License Revenue, 2004-2008 (Millions of Dollars)

 

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

Total Revenue

587.8

681.7

810.8

970.2

1,153.4

Source: Gartner (June 2005)

Collaboration technologies, especially web conferencing, have been used most frequently in North America. The Europe, Asia/Pacific and North America regions are all expected to meet or exceed the worldwide growth rate in 2005, with forecast increases of 16 percent, 20 percent, and 16.3 percent, respectively. Japan and Latin America are forecast to grow 12.4 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively.

"Cultural differences play a strong role in adoption of collaboration technologies," says Eid. "It is more common in North America and Europe to have meetings and other forms of interpersonal communication supported by collaboration tools. In other geographies, such as Latin America, email is used as the primary mode of communication in lieu of horizontal collaboration technologies. In Asia/Pacific and Japan, face-to-face meetings are preferred and, at times, business travel for meetings is seen as a privilege."

Web conferencing collaboration products support interaction between participants in real-time, in a meeting or presentation format. They include file, screen and application sharing, chatting and electronic whiteboarding. Team-based products provide shared folders and workspaces, threaded discussions and document-based collaboration and primarily through asynchronous behavior. Team-based technologies provide a persistent, easy-to-access archive of discussions and stored content.

Additional information is available in the Gartner Dataquest report "Forecast: Web Conferencing and Team Collaboration Software, Worldwide, 2005-2009." This report examines the state of the worldwide collaboration software market and looks at what trends are developing, as well as a full forecast for the market. These reports can be purchased on Gartner's website at www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=g_search&id=481675.

 

U.S. Companies Dominate U.K. IT Training

 

The most recent issue of Class Notes, a weekly education investment newsletter published by the Robert W. Baird Education Services team, reports that U.S. companies continue to dominate IT training in the United Kingdom.

 

IT Skills Research, a U.K.-based research firm, published its annual list of the U.K.’s top 50 IT training providers measured by revenue generated in the U.K. Among the top 10 companies, SkillSoft was the only pure play U.S. company to move up in the rankings, coming in 6th this year, versus 7th last year. Learning Tree slipped from rank 2 last year to