WASHINGTON, July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/—Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq:
BBBB) today announced that it has entered into definitive agreements to
acquire both Elluminate, Inc. and Wimba, Inc., two of the leading providers of
synchronous learning and collaboration technology to the education markets, for
a total of approximately $116 million in cash, excluding transaction costs and
subject to certain adjustments.
These leading teams and solutions
together will form Blackboard Collaborate, the newest standalone platform in the
Company’s family of education solutions. Blackboard, combined with the teams
from Elluminate and Wimba, will pursue greater innovation to meet growing needs
in the area of synchronous learning and collaboration, including continued
support for integrations with open source applications and other commercial
learning management systems (LMS).
Elluminate and Wimba offer advanced
virtual classroom technology that allows education institutions to hold
synchronous live courses over the Web, including audio, video, white board and
social learning capabilities. The technologies are used to supplement
traditional courses, to support full distance learning courses, and to
facilitate a variety of other collaborative interactions including virtual
office hours, team meetings, professional development, student projects and
mentoring and tutoring opportunities.
“We’ve heard directly from our
clients that this technology has become increasingly fundamental to the learning
process for the online course experience and beyond,” said Michael L. Chasen,
Blackboard President and CEO. “Collaboration technology is joining the range of
solutions that our clients are leveraging to support and improve the teaching
and learning experience. We expect this will grow as institutions look for
cost-effective ways to encourage social learning and support learning
interactions of all kinds."
Leading Providers of Synchronous
Learning and Collaboration Software in Education Combine to Establish Blackboard
Collaborate
Together, Elluminate and Wimba serve more than 2,600
institutions in the U.S. K-12, U.S. higher education, international and
professional education markets.
“Bringing Elluminate and Wimba together
allows us to accelerate development of their technologies to better realize the
full potential for impacting education—at a rate much faster than any of our
organizations could have achieved independently,” said Ray Henderson, President
of Blackboard Learn who will set the technology strategy and provide leadership
to the combined team. “I’m confident in our ability to maintain positive
experiences for clients and learners in all contexts, regardless of which
learning management system is used. We will continue to support Elluminate and
Wimba integrations for open source products and plan to do the same for bridges
with other commercial LMS providers as well.”
- Elluminate, headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, was founded in 2000 and employs approximately 140 professional staff serving more than 1,900 K-12 and higher education clients located throughout the U.S. and 80 other countries.
- Wimba, headquartered in New York, NY, was founded in 1998 and employs approximately 100 professional staff serving more than 700 K-12 and higher education clients located throughout the U.S. and 27 other countries.
About Blackboard Inc.
Blackboard Inc.
(Nasdaq: BBBB) is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative
solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners
around the world every day. Blackboard’s solutions allow thousands of higher
education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend
teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and
communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard
is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe,
Asia and Australia.
About Elluminate
Elluminate, Inc.
delivers best-in-class web, audio, video, and social networking solutions
optimized for 21st century teaching, learning, and collaboration. The company
helps unify enterprise technologies to ensure that learning and collaboration
happen in a better, faster, and more efficient way. Since its founding in 2000,
the company has grown to provide over 1 billion web-collaboration minutes
annually, serving over 7 million teachers and students located in over 170
different countries.
Elluminate was named one of Deloitte’s 50 Fastest
Growing Technology Companies and was positioned in the Visionaries Quadrant of
the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing, 2009. Headquartered in Calgary,
Alberta, Canada, and Pleasanton, California, Elluminate is the trusted choice of
prominent academic institutions and corporations, including ADP, The California
State University, IBM, K12 Inc., Los Angeles Unified School District, Miami-Dade
County Public Schools, The Open University, and many
others.
About Wimba®
Wimba® is a leading provider of
collaborative solutions used by thousands of educators around the world to
engage students, support business needs, and save time and money. The Wimba
Collaboration Suite™—awarded the 2009 “Best Education Solution” and 2010 “Best
Collaboration Solution” CODiE award by SIIA—offers students, teachers and
administrators an engaging and comprehensive collaboration environment for
instruction, meetings and help. By combining academic features, ease of use and
interactive technologies, Wimba goes well beyond web conferencing and sets a new
standard for collaboration. www.wimba.com.