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January 17, 2006, 03:39 PM ET
The Economics of Blackboard
For Blackboard, the popular provider of collegiate course-management systems, new clients don’t come cheap.
A new study estimates that Blackboard spends about $259,000—mostly on software demonstrations and proposal writing—for each college it woos. To make that fee worthwhile, writes the blogger Michael Feldstein, the company tries pitching its wares to university systems rather than individual campuses. And Blackboard makes it a point to "upsell and cross-sell like crazy," aggressively offering additional products to institutions that already use its learning-management system, Mr. Feldstein says.
On the one hand, that’s just capitalism at work. But on the other, it’s in sharp contrast to the economics of open-source digital course management, in which the virtues of new products are self-evident and require little promoting. (e-Literate)
Categories: Leadership, Company-Watch
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