Blackboard Upgrades Integrations for Elluminate, Wimba Solutions

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced several new integrations for its Blackboard Collaborate™ solutions, Elluminate and Wimba, that bring new capabilities to institutions leveraging the leading education-focused collaboration solutions with course management systems including Sakai and Moodle.

The new integrations continue Blackboard's approach of providing greater choice and flexibility with the use of Blackboard Collaborate solutions. The company maintains a set of integrations built on open architecture and open APIs that enable the seamless use of Elluminate and Wimba solutions with Blackboard's leading teaching and learning platform, Blackboard Learn™ as well as ANGEL®, WebCT®, Sakai®, Moodle™, Desire2Learn™, Pearson LearningStudio and Fronter.

Two of the new integrations support the use of Elluminate Live, giving Moodle users new capabilities including backup, recovery and improved work flow, and offering Sakai users an improved user interface, the ability to obtain external recording links and an option to add unregistered guest users to a session.

The third new integration supports use of Wimba Classroom 1.6 with Moodle and offers granular security and video setting controls within the system interface.

"The Elluminate Sakai integration has been a tremendously effective and easy to use piece of our LMS that draws new users in each semester," said Ryan Allen, Assistant Director of E-Learning Systems and Support at the University of Dayton. "With these new integrations, our students have access to improved usability for launching sessions and recordings, a tool that integrates seamlessly and opens doors for collaboration."

As part of the Blackboard Collaborate solutions, Elluminate and Wimba solutions are continually being developed to deliver choice and flexibility in technology and learning. Integrating with multiple LMS, CMS or VLE applications, Blackboard Collaborate reduces support costs for institutions and enables extensibility at low risk.

"These new integrations reflect our focus and commitment to our clients, and our goal of supporting learning wherever it is taking place," said Maurice Heiblum, President of Blackboard Collaborate. "The integrations are also evidence of our intent to support institutions with an open approach and continued investment in improved technologies."

To learn more about Blackboard Collaborate, please visit http://www.blackboard.com/collaborate.

About Blackboard Inc.

Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard and other statements containing the words "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will," and similar expressions, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including the factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our Form 10-Q filed on May 9, 2011 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of May 16, 2011. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company's views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to May 16, 2011.

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.