Blackboard Buys Moodlerooms and Netspot 95
Posted
by
timothy
from the cutting-the-ropes-instead-of-boring-the-hull dept.
from the cutting-the-ropes-instead-of-boring-the-hull dept.
crumley writes "Blackboard, the proprietary giant in the learning management software market, has purchased two companies, Moodlerooms and Netspot, that sell support for their open source competitor Moodle. Blackboard said that they plan to allow Moodlerooms and Netspot to continue operating with their current leadership. It will be interesting to see if this move leads to an exodus from Moodlerooms and Netspot, since many of their clients were intentionally trying to avoid doing business with Blackboard."
Re:they can continue for now... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is 2012. I understand academia moves slowly but I certainly expect more of a services provider for education than horrendous table-based layout from 1997 [netspot.com.au].
While not the underlying technology, the landing page is the first thing potential (and, in many cases, existing) clients see and such antiquated structure would warn me away from such a provider. If companies like Netspot are the competition Blackboard can squash only through purchasing, Blackboard must be a really shitty company.