Melrose has a strong background in tertiary education in New Zealand and overseas.
It has campuses in Auckland, Manukau, Hamilton, Wellington and Christchurch, and offers a selection of arts, fashion and IT programmes, from certificate through to postgraduate levels. Owned by Asia Pacific Education Group (APEDU), Whitecliffe College comprises Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, NZ Fashion Tech, and Computer Power Plus.
With fewer than a dozen employees, the firm’s main appeal to Blackboard is that its technology allows students to communicate via video and instant message in their computer or mobile browser without downloading a plug- in.Darryn Melrose has been appointed as chief executive of private art and design school, Whitecliffe College. Last week’s purchase of Requestec fits the latter category. Bhatt said Blackboard typically buys firms for two reasons: to expand its offerings or enhance its technology.
Cardsmith joins blackboard software#
Employees were divided among the company’s target markets, rather than its individual products, so that they could sell the company’s software to customers as a bundle.īlackboard’s recent acquisitions - which began in January with the purchase of Austin-based MyEdu - are part of that strategy. That process started with restructuring the company, a decision Bhatt made shortly after joining Blackboard nearly two years ago. “Those are all things that have to be linked because we have this holistic portfolio of tools that are meant to affect the entire teaching and learning spectrum, and we weren’t really doing that,” Bhatt said. Providence Equity Partners, a private-equity firm, bought the company for $1.64 billion in 2011.Īt the time, the company also offered an array of products to help schools with various aspects of the educational experience, but those products were sold individually rather than bundled, Bhatt said. The strategy is not a complete departure from the days when Blackboard was a public company. We’re trying to stay on top of our core,” Bhatt said. “We’re not trying to be everything to everybody. education market, thanks to its long-held business of providing schools with a learning management system to augment classroom instruction.īhatt said Blackboard’s strategy is not to become the technological backbone for all the interactions a school has with its students but instead to offer schools a comprehensive suite of software that assists with many aspects of teaching and learning. The acquisitions are part of a broader strategy under chief executive Jay Bhatt to provide school systems and universities with a complete bundle of products that assist their students with a range of tasks including buying textbooks, tracking grades and building résumés.īlackboard continues to be a dominant player in the U.S. The purchase of London-based Requestec follows a summer spending spree in which Blackboard also bought CardSmith, a maker of student identification cards, and Perceptis, a provider of administrative and technical support for students. District-based education technology company Blackboard made the latest in a string of acquisitions last week, picking up a small British outfit that makes video conferencing and instant messaging software.
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