Here's the language of the FAX sent to the Department of Justice Citizen's Complaint line regarding the Blackboard acquisition:
Please feel free to use any portion or all of this language to file your own complaint.
Blackboard Inc. (650 Massachusetts Avenue N.W., Washington, DC 20001-3796, phone: 202 463-4860, http://www.blackboard.com/) licenses two learning management systems (LMS): Blackboard Campus Edition (formerly WebCT and acquired when they purchased WebCT in 2006) and Blackboard Academic Suite (their original product). Numerous schools, Johnson County Community College among them, have chosen to cease licensing Blackboard and are in the process of migrating to a different LMS, primarily ANGEL offered by ANGEL Learning. This migration is specifically related to cost and the lack of customer support and responsiveness to the customer.
In early May 2009, Blackboard Inc. announced that they have acquired/purchased ANGEL Learning, thus eliminating one of the last non-Blackboard Inc. options available to institutions offering online instruction. Further, Blackboard has an on-going patent infringement case against another competitor in the LMS field, Desire2Learn. Blackboard appears to be trying to shut down competition either by purchase or by legal action. Their patent claim is disputed by most industry leaders and has been thrown out at least once by the court but the decision has been appealed and a second patent claim filed by Blackboard against Desire2Learn.
If you check my blog at http://angeliclearning.blogspot.com/ you’ll find several postings on this issue including the May 10, 2009 posting that lists institutions that have experienced poor customer service and an inferior product line since the merger of Blackboard and WebCT.
Our concern is that Blackboard through monopolistic practices is reducing the viable alternatives in the field and forcing the higher education customer base to use Blackboard product(s) as they eliminate other options. To see verification of this, please review the Instructional Technology Councils 2008 Distance Education Survey Results, Table 1, page 3 at http://www.itcnetwork.org/file.php?file=/1/ITCAnnualSurveyMarch2009Final.pdf).
We are requesting that the Department of Justice review this merger/acquisition to determine whether allowing the process to continue creates a monopoly by significantly reducing competition and whether the needs of the higher education community are served or jeopardized by the acquisition.
Footnote: Additional coverage of this "buyout" has appeared in:
- The Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i37/37a00102.htm, May 22, 2009
- eLiterate: http://mfeldstein.com/bad-news-for-blackboard-good-news-for-angel/
No comments:
Post a Comment