] Seems unlikely that they will have a failed IPO. Their only
] public competitor, ecollege.com is valued at a ridiculous
] $20/share right now and has about 2% of the market share.
] Blackboard has an order of magnitude more market share. I
] expect Blackboard to go straight up and ecollege to drop.
] Ecollege investors are nuts, I think they don't realize that
] major competetors Blackboard, WebCT and Desire2Learn are
] dominating the market and that ecollege is merely a footnote.
] The fact that ecollege stock price is so high right now points
] to the fact that investors want to get into the lucrative
] elearning market.

True, but BB has a sizable investment in its Transaction System, which I have the most experience with. There competitors there are quite steep with Diebold and CBORD.

My beef with BB, other than getting sued, is a bunch of Execs and VC bought several competing Transaction system, some web portal software, jazzed the marketing up on them, and are trying for a nice rich IPO. They are making money without innovation, so fuck em.

RE: Blackboard Looks Likely To Go Public