Blackboard to Host Investor Call to Discuss Elluminate and Wimba Acquisitions

WASHINGTON, July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced that it will host an investor call to discuss its planned acquisitions of Elluminate, Inc. and Wimba, Inc., two of the leading providers of synchronous learning and collaboration technology to the education markets.  

Blackboard will also broadcast its conference call live over the Internet beginning at 8:00 a.m. on July 8, 2010, and interested parties can access the webcast through the Investor Relations section of the Company's Web site at http://investor.blackboard.com.

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.

About Elluminate

Elluminate, Inc. delivers best-in-class web, audio, video, and social networking solutions optimized for 21st century teaching, learning, and collaboration. The company helps unify enterprise technologies to ensure that learning and collaboration happen in a better, faster, and more efficient way. Since its founding in 2000, the company has grown to provide over 1 billion web-collaboration minutes annually, serving over 7 million teachers and students located in over 170 different countries.

Elluminate was named one of Deloitte's 50 Fastest Growing Technology Companies and was positioned in the Visionaries Quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing, 2009. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and Pleasanton, California, Elluminate is the trusted choice of prominent academic institutions and corporations, including ADP, The California State University, IBM, K12 Inc., Los Angeles Unified School District, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, The Open University, and many others.

About Wimba®

Wimba® is a leading provider of collaborative solutions used by thousands of educators around the world to engage students, support business needs, and save time and money. The Wimba Collaboration Suite™ -- awarded the 2009 "Best Education Solution" and 2010 "Best Collaboration Solution" CODiE award by SIIA -- offers students, teachers and administrators an engaging and comprehensive collaboration environment for instruction, meetings and help. By combining academic features, ease of use and interactive technologies, Wimba goes well beyond web conferencing and sets a new standard for collaboration. www.wimba.com.

Wimba retained East Wind Advisors as its financial advisor in its sale to Blackboard.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This release includes information about the Company's non-GAAP adjusted net income and non-GAAP adjusted net income per share, which are non-GAAP financial measures. Management believes that both measures, which exclude the amortization of acquisition-related intangible assets, stock-based compensation, and non-cash interest expense, all net of taxes, provide additional useful information to investors regarding the Company's ongoing financial condition and results of operations and aspects of current operating performance that can be effectively managed. Because the Company has historically reported these non-GAAP results to the investment community, management also believes the inclusion of these non-GAAP financial measures provides enhanced comparability in its financial reporting and facilitates investors' understanding of the Company's historic operating trends by providing an additional basis for comparisons to prior periods. In addition, the Company's internal reporting, including information provided to the Company's Audit Committee and Board of Directors, contains non-GAAP measures. The Company has also adopted internal compensation metrics in 2010 that are determined on a basis that excludes amortization of acquired intangibles, stock-based compensation expense and non-cash interest expense, all net of taxes.

A material limitation associated with the use of the above non-GAAP financial measures is that they have no standardized measurement prescribed by GAAP and may not be comparable with similar non-GAAP financial measures used by other companies. The Company compensates for these limitations by providing full disclosure of each non-GAAP financial measure and reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure which investors can use to appropriately consider each financial measure determined under GAAP as well as on the adjusted non-GAAP basis. However, the non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as a substitute for, financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. In addition to the information contained in this release, investors should also review information contained in the Company's Form 10-Q dated May 7, 2010, as well as other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission when assessing the Company's financial condition and results of operations.

SOURCE Blackboard Inc.