Desire2Learn CEO Makes Case Against Blackboard Patent, Court Ruling

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Desire2Learn CEO Makes Case Against Blackboard Patent, Court Ruling

A conversation with Desire2Learn's John Baker and Diane Lank

3/17/2008

By David Nagel

Nagel: You raised a point I wanted to bring up. You have, I believe, a few percent of the LMS market share in the United States. Is that accurate?

Baker: We're not sure exactly what the market share is that we have, but I would imagine we have probably a few hundred individual campuses that are using [our] technology.

Nagel: As a percentage, would you say it's in the single digits?

Baker: Probably, yes.

Nagel: Do you know what the breakdown is--just of your own clients--between higher ed and K-12?

Baker: The overwhelming majority is higher education in the United States. But we do have a lot of statewide virtual schools....

Nagel: In K-12, what are they using it for? LMSes are not used in the same way in K-12 that they are in higher ed. Is it more on the professional development side?

Baker: Interesting enough, we have clients that are in the K-12 environment that are making more use of it than we typically see in higher education. So it depends on the client in terms of where they are in terms of the maturity of their e-learning model. Some are using it for every student in every class. But that's pretty rare. The majority of them are using it for professional development for teachers. In other cases it's being used for students, whether it's for distance programs or online programs. And in other cases, it's a great mechanism for them to be communicating with parents. Some students, for example, will have their grades posted immediately [so] parents can see it. It really changes the parent-teacher night, if you will. Quite dramatically. Parents are a lot more engaged in the educational process.

Nagel: And that's eventually going to apply to ePortfolio too?

Baker: The ePortfolio really does open up a number of opportunities for other people [who] want to participate or the individual user wants to participate with--to create social networks to invite in parents to invite in friends to open up the learning to a different ... group of stakeholders [from] what's traditional in the classroom.

Nagel: Back to market share. Regarding your percentage there, basically your small market share in the United States was part of your argument against the injunction. Would you explain that?

Baker: I don't think we used the small market share as a major reason against the injunction.

Nagel: The way I read it, you were saying that when Blackboard wanted to merge with WebCT, their argument was they weren't going to stifle competition because you guys exist, and you have a small market share. I thought that was part of the argument.

Baker: I think the key part of the argument we were making was: Around the department of Justice work with Blackboard when they were merging with WebCT, ... they justified the merger by ... playing us off as their most significant competitor in their marketplace. And then, while they had this patent, ... literally [with] the same lawyers ... Blackboard turned around a few months later and sued us to prevent us competing in the marketplace. Or to attempt to prevent us from competing in the marketplace.