Focus On Federal Government Training Pays Dividends For Vendors Who Paid Their Dues
EXCLUSIVE While corporate training budgets have been cut back
drastically due to poor economic conditions, training departments
of federal government agencies have not been as severely impacted.
In fiscal 2001, the federal government spent $8.12 billion on training and employment services, up 20% from $6.77 billion the year
before. While more recent figures are not available, vendors report
that federal spending on training and development, especially related to e-learning, is on the rise. Those who have been busy building relationships in federal agencies over the past few years are in
a good position to reap the rewards of access to the federal sector.
Between now and the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, federal
training spending is expected to see its seasonal spike, as procurement officers scramble to protect their budgets for 2003 in a “use it
or lose it” mode.
Peter Nagrod, executive of government services for the American
Management Association of New York, estimated his Washington,
D.C., operation, begun in 2000, will generate about $7 million in
federal agency sales this year, up from $5 million in 2001. This represents about 4% of AMA’s total revenues, estimated at $175 million this year.
See “Federal Government Training,” pg. 2
S EPT . 6, 2002, V OL . 7, N O . 17
TOP OF THE NEWS
1
Focus On Federal Government
Training Pays Dividends For
Vendors Who Paid Their Dues
IN THIS ISSUE
1
4
5
6
6
Military Most Frequent Federal
Training Buyer
Zenger Defends Provant, Says
Firm Has Stabilized
SCORM Certification Bodies To
Be Established This Fall
Latest Plugfest Dubbed A Success, 220 Groups Show
Saba Stock Gains, While
Click2Learn, Centra Drop
ELSEWHERE
7
8
8
8
Contract News
News Briefs
Partnerships
People In The News
DATABANK
3
4
7
Major Federal Training Contracts
Awarded, January-August 2002
Federal Government Contracting
Vehicles
Performance Of Public Training
Company Stocks, 8/16/028/30/02
Military Most Frequent Buyer On Major Federal
Training Contracts Year-To-Date; E-Learning Hot
EXCLUSIVE Of 28 federal training products/services/technology
contracts over $100,000 in value awarded to date in 2002, 13 or
46.4% of them came from military agencies.
Among other agencies, only the Bureau of Prisons and the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) have
signed more than one major training contract thus far in 2002, with
two each.
The largest single contract during the period came from the U.S.
Navy, which awarded an indefinite duration/indefinite quantity
See “Federal Contracts,” pg. 2
The Pulse
Eight Of The Top 10 Fastest
Growing Occupations In IT
According to the Department of
Labor, eight of the top 10 fastest
growing occupations between
2000 and 2010 fall under the heading of IT. These include computer
software engineers/applications
(projected to double by 2010);
computer support specialists (projected 97% growth) and software
engineers (projected 90% growth).
Source: U.S. Department of Labor
2002 Simba Information, Stamford, CT, (203) 358-4100. Copying prohibited.
Lifelong Learning Market Report
Corrections Policy
1. We always publish corrections at least as prominently as the original mistake was published.
2. We are eager to make corrections quickly and candidly.
3. Although we welcome letters that are critical of our
work, an aggrieved party need not have a letter published for us to correct a mistake. We will publish
corrections on our own, and in our own voice as soon
as we are told about a mistake by anyone—our staff,
an uninvolved reader or an aggrieved reader – and
can confirm the correct information.
4. Our corrections policy should not be mistaken for a
policy of accommodating readers who are simply
unhappy about a story.
5. Information about corrections or complaints should
be directed to executive editor Sandy Sutton. She may
be reached by mail at PO Box 4234, Stamford, CT
06907; or by fax at 203-358-5825
6. Separately or in addition, readers are invited to
contact Media Central’s COO Gerard Griffin. He may
be reached by mail at 470 Park Avenue South, New
York, NY 10016; or by fax at (917) 981-2926.
PO Box 4234, 11 River Bend Drive So., Stamford, CT 06907 USA
Main Tel: (203) 358-4100; Main fax: (203) 358-5824
Internet: http://www.simbanet.com; e-mail: llmr@simbanet.com
Lifelong Learning Market Report:
Editor: Michael O’Brien (203) 358-4281
Executive Editor, News: Sandy Sutton (203) 358-4354
Executive Editor, Research & Analysis: Linda Kopp (203) 358-4285
Editorial Director: John McManus (203) 358-4180
Director of Marketing: Sydney Dorfman (212) 545-3635
Advertising Sales: Richard Greco (203) 358-4309
Customer Service: Judy Pinney (831) 624-1536 x207
ISSN#: 1088-7512. Subscriptions: $450 for 24 issues per year.
Airmail: $50 extra per year; single copies: $35
COO: Gerard Griffin
Editorial Director: John McManus
470 Park Ave. S., 8th Floor
New York, NY 10016
212-545-3600
PRIMEDIA BUSINESS TO BUSINESS
Senior Vice President & Chief Creative Officer
Craig Reiss (creiss@primedia.com)
PRIMEDIA INC.
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Tom Rogers (trogers@primedia.com)
Vice Chairman & General Counsel
Beverly Chell (bchell@primedia.com)
President
Charles McCurdy (cmccurdy@primedia.com)
Related Products and Services You Might Be Interested In:
Simba also publishes the newsletters Electronic Education Report and
Educational Marketer and the research reports Corporate Training
Market, Print Publishing for the School Market, the College Publishing
Market Report, and Electronic Materials for the School Market. Call us
or check our Web site for information.
Important Legal Information You Should Know:
Lifelong Learning Market Report is protected by U.S. copyright law
(17USC101 et seq.). It is illegal to make copies or faxes of this newsletter
without permission—even for internal use. Violators risk criminal
penalties and $100,000 damages per offense. Contact Sandy Sutton to
report abuses. Confidentiality assured.
If You Have a Special Request:
If you want information about bulk subscription discounts, electronic
site licenses or permission to use data reported in this newsletter, contact Richard Greco as above. For information on customized reprints,
contact FosteReprints, 4295 South Ohio St., Michigan City, IN 46360,
(866) 436-8366.
© 2002 Simba Information Inc.
-2“Fed Contracts” from pg. 1
contract in May to Raytheon
Technical Services of Reston,
Va., which could total as much
as $27.8 million over five years.
The contract called for supplying an e-learning platform and
integration services for the Naval Education and Training
Professional Development and
Technology Center in Pensacola, Fla.
On the other end of the scale,
the Department of Veterans’
Affairs awarded a $105,000
sole-source training contract in
June to Integrity Services Inc. of
Nashville. Sole source means
the agency did not go through
a competitive bid process but
only identified one vendor as
meeting its selection criteria.
Of the 28 federal agency contracts identified thus far this
year, 14 were for e-learning infrastructure systems, either a
learning management system
or a learning content management system. Eight were for
specialized/technical/business
skills training programs; three
were for IT training; and three
fell in the category of soft skills.
The most active vendors in
terms of agency wins during
the period were learning management system firms
GeoLearning of West Des
Moines, Iowa, and Plateau Systems of Arlington, Va., both of
which landed five federal contracts thus far this year. The
GeoLearning contracts have an
estimated combined value of
Sept. 6, 2002
about $1.7 million; a figure was
not available for Plateau.
At $500,000 in 2001 revenues,
Commonwealth Trading Partners
of Reston, Va., a specialist in export control system training and
support, was the smallest firm
awarded a major contract thus far
in 2002. In June, NOAA selected
Commonwealth for a one-year
training contract with four possible annual extensions worth up to
$9.6 million.
“Fed Gov’t Training” from pg. 1
One key to winning business at
AMA client agencies like the Veterans Administration and the National Guard, Nagrod said, is the
ability to deliver custom content
that addresses specific agency
needs.
“You have to recognize the
uniqueness of the government,
and not try to sell them off-theshelf materials,” Nagrod said.
“They expect vendors to come
with custom training solutions.”
While the Federal Business Opportunities Web site is a helpful
resource in terms of researching
agency contract activity, Nagrod
said, “By the time the RFP is out,
it’s too late. You need to be out
there, meeting with people.” Presenting an unsolicited contract
proposal to an agency is another
avenue, Nagrod said.
As in any federal contract effort,
the main gatekeepers for training
are procurement officers, who authorize the release of funds. While
voluminous regulations can make
the application and selection pro-
2002 Simba Information, Stamford, CT, (203) 358-4100. Copying prohibited.
Lifelong Learning Market Report
-3-
Sept. 6, 2002
Major Federal Training Contracts Awarded, January-August 2002
Agency
Vendor
Veterans Affairs
U.S. Army
NASA
Dept. of Treasury
EEOC (1)
NOAA (2)
NITS (3)
U.S. Courts
Dept. of Energy
DOT
HUD
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Navy
Veterans Affairs
U.S. Navy
FDIC
Veterans Affairs
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Air Force
NOAA (2)
OPM (5)
Bureau of Prisons
Bureau of Prisons
U.S. Navy
Veterans Affairs
U.S. Navy
USDA
Dept. of Defense
MC Strategies Inc.
Click2learn
Training Resource Consultants
MicroMash Inc.
GeoLearning
GeoLearning
GeoLearning
GeoLearning
Plateau Systems
FPMI/Provant
GeoLearning
Plateau Systems
Raytheon Technical Services
VCampus
JIL Information Systems
Scendis
Integrity Services Inc.
Plateau Systems
Plateau Systems
Commonwealth Trading Partners
GeoLearning
KSC-TRI Systems
Burlington County College
OutStart
VERTEX Solutions
PeopleSoft
SI International
Plateau Systems
Award
Jan.
Jan.
Jan.
Jan.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
Feb.
March
March
May
May
May
May
May
June
June
June
June
June
July
July
July
August
August
August
August
August
Details
$1.1 million for health info. code mgmt. training
$2.1 million for e-learning platform
$663,000 for contracting officer training
$3.9 million for tax law/accounting e-learning
$300,000 for LMS
$300,000 for LMS
$300,000 for LMS
$300,000 for LMS
$500,000 for LMS
$3.5 million for federal air marshal training
$150,000 for LMS contract
LMS for USAF Information Warfare Center
up to $27.8 million for platform, integration
$1.2 million for hosted LMS
$4.9 million for training services support systems
$433,600 for diversity training
$105,000 for employee training
LMS for Air Combat Command, Langley AFB
LMS for counterintelligence/surveillance program
$9.6 million for export control training/services
$500,000 for 1st phase of training portal
$312,000 for computer training
$524,000 for business training program
$7.5 million for Naval Warfare Center platform
$184,000 for HIPAA training (4)
$148,000 for PeopleSoft end user training
$1.4 million for Windows system training
$500,000 for LMS to run healthcare training
(1) Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(2) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(3) National Institutes of Technology and Standards
(4) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(5) Office of Personnel Management
Source: FedBizOpps, Simba Information. Copying prohibited.
cess appear daunting, in the end it
is often relationships with federal
training managers that can help
grease the wheels for a contract
award, helping eliminate obstacles
for preferred vendors.
“The one rule of thumb [in federal business] is who you know,”
said Vince Rowe, vice president of
Americas for KnowledgePool, a
unit of Fujitsu that provides elearning mentoring products and
services. “You can skirt the issues
by creating relationships and getting people to like you. If a decision-maker likes you, you’re in.”
Frank Russell, president and
chief operating officer of learning
management system firm
GeoLearning of West Des Moines,
Iowa, said government work represents a major growth area of his
business. The company originally
projected it would equal 15% to
25% of sales in 2002 – up from 5%
in 2001 – but that estimate has
been increased to 25%. LLMR publisher Simba Information estimates
2002 Simba Information, Stamford, CT, (203) 358-4100. Copying prohibited.
Lifelong Learning Market Report
GeoLearning’s 2002 revenues at
$43.8 million.
“There’s more [government]
business than we anticipated – it’s
been surprisingly strong,” Russell
said.
Last year, GeoLearning hired a
consultant to help ensure compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, which mandates all
computer-based products be accessible to people with disabilities.
“We made a very significant investment of time, energy and people, including dedicated sales and
marketing people and hiring a director of federal government relations who lives in the agencies,”
Russell said. “We have the potential to expand it if the state and
local markets take off, which
haven’t been as hot as federal.”
-4for e-learning procurement.
Content firms NETg of Naperville, Ill., SkillSoft of Nashua, N.H.,
and Karta Technologies of San Antonio, Texas, as well as LMS firm
THINQ of Billerica, Mass., are currently the only FasTrac certified
vendors.
Contact info:
American Management Association: (212) 5868100; www.amanet.org
GeoLearning: (800) 970-9903;
www.geolearning.com
KnowledgePool Americas: (888) 215-3872;
www.knowledgepool.com
Zenger Defends Provant,
Says Firm Has Stabilized
Provant interim president and
CEO Jack Zenger faces a daunting
challenge as he leads the embattled soft skills rollup while seeking
to improve its stock value and find
a buyer, but says a corner has been
turned.
While revenues for the year end-
Sept. 6, 2002
ed June 30 were down 22% from
2001 – $161.2 compared to $206.9
million – fourth quarter revenues
were up 13% sequentially to $40.5
million. And contract backlog was
$57 million, compared to $48 million at the end of December.
Zenger was appointed interim
president and CEO last month
when Curt Uehlein abruptly left
the company, citing health reasons. Zenger said he does not plan
to institute any major changes.
Headcount has stabilized, he said,
but he declined to provide specifics, saying that the company was
still looking at ways to achieve operating efficiencies.
“My intent in the coming period
is to continue in the direction
we’re going,” Zenger said. “All the
operating units are doing well,
and right now our plan is just to
press forward.”
Zenger said Provant’s allied
Ways To Help The Process
Avenues to increasing the odds
of a federal training contract award include acquiring a number from
Government Contracting Vehicles
the General Services
General Services Administration (GSA) number: Vendors can apply for a
Administration, which
GSA number, which is the same as their initial contract award number from GSA.
acts as a facilitator
While this can increase the likelihood of subsequent GSA approvals, getting
and clearinghouse for
a GSA number can be a long, involved process.
contracting across agencies; becoming a particiSpecialized Technical and Technology User Services (STATUS): This
program, created in 2001 by the Department of Transportation's Administrative
pant in the Department
Service Center, is a vehicle which allows federal, state and local government
of Transportation’s Speagencies to rapidly acquire various information technology products under single
cialized Technical and
blanket contracts. The STATUS project office reviews agency requests for goods
Technology Users Seror services, submits requests for proposals or task orders, and helps the agency
evaluate proposals submitted by pre-selected vendors. About 40 e-learning
vices (STATUS) profirms are on the STATUS list, which was created in 2001.
gram, a streamlining
vehicle for IT contractFasTrac: Initially created by the National Security Administration, FasTrac is now
ing; and joining the Deoverseen by the Department of the Treasury's Franchise Business Activity (FBA)
partment of the Treasdivision. Through FasTrac, FBA expedites agency requests for IT and business
skills e-learning. The current pre-selected content vendors are NETg, SkillSoft
ury’s FasTrac program
and Karta Technologies; THINQ provides the learning management system.
2002 Simba Information, Stamford, CT, (203) 358-4100. Copying prohibited.
Lifelong Learning Market Report
model of maintaining brand distinctiveness – midway between
full integration and a loosely allied
holding company – was the right
course to take. Uehlein had come
under fire from investors for failing to develop a coherent strategy
for the firm.
“I felt from the beginning that
was the best model,” Zenger said.
“Full integration would have been
extremely risky, losing the value of
the brands and the uniqueness of
companies that specialize in a particular area. That’s what customers
want.”
Sale of Company Still Sought
Still, Provant remains for sale, as
it had a close call in June. LLMR
has learned that Three Cities Research of New York, a private equity firm with $650 million in assets under management, had been
in serious discussions with
Provant before ultimately deciding
against an acquisition at the eleventh hour.
Another former suitor, the Institute for International Research,
may come back. IIR chairman Irvine Laidlaw contacted Provant
last month and was referred to investment bank Jefferies & Co.,
which is advising the firm. IIR’s
earlier, unsolicited offer was rebuffed by the Provant board in
February (LLMR, Feb. 8).
“Every bona fide offer will be
carefully evaluated by the board,
and Irvine Laidlaw is not excluded
from that process,” Zenger said.
Contact info:
Provant: (617) 261-16000; www.provant.com
-5-
SCORM Cert. Bodies To
Be Established This Fall
EXCLUSIVE Sometime this fall,
three or four organizations will be
designated as accrediting bodies to
certify vendor compliance with the
Sharable Courseware Object Reusable Model (SCORM) e-learning
specifications from the Department of Defense’s Advanced Distributed Learning Network (ADL),
according to Paul Jesukiewicz, director of the ADL Co-Lab in Alexandria, Va.
Once these certification entities
are established, vendors will be
able to obtain independent, thirdparty verification that their elearning content and/or platforms
are SCORM compliant, a de facto
requirement from corporate clients
and prospects. Currently, buyers
have to rely on vendor assertions
that they are compliant based on
use of a self-test software kit from
ADL.
Organizations that have expressed an interest in becoming
SCORM testing/certification bodies include the American Society
for Training and Development
(ASTD) of Alexandria, Va.; the
Naval Underwater Warfare Center
in Keyport, Wash.; the University
of Wisconsin in Madison and the
University of Central Florida in
Orlando. The centers would
charge a minimum fee to cover
costs.
“Hopefully by mid-October,
we’ll have memorandums of understanding with testing centers
for [SCORM] certification,” Jesukiewicz told LLMR. “[Learning
Sept. 6, 2002
management system] vendors will
probably go through it first.”
SCORM, which is built on the
work of e-learning standards bodies like the Aviation Industry
Computer-Based Training Committee (AICC) and the Instructional Management System Global
Consortium (IMS), is a set of specifications which provide a blueprint for developing e-learning
content that can be broken into
small chunks and run on any
compliant system. Similarly, content developed on a SCORM compliant platform should work on
any other system that adheres to
the specifications.
The next version of SCORM,
which will integrate IMS specifications that outline how e-learning
content objects from different
sources should be assembled or
sequenced, is scheduled for release
in December or January.
Buyers Like Validation
Having independent organizations set up to test for SCORM
compliance will be a plus for buyers, providing greater validation
than vendors’ claims when considering e-learning investments
that can easily run over $1 million.
Beth Weingroff, vice president of
instructional design for the retail
division of Chicago-based Bank
One Corp., said an independently
verified SCORM certification
should eventually separate the
wheat from the e-learning chaff.
“The marketplace would drive
out companies that say they’re
compliant and are not,” Weingroff
said. “The community of [e-
2002 Simba Information, Stamford, CT, (203) 358-4100. Copying prohibited.
Lifelong Learning Market Report
learning designers] is not that
large, and word of mouth would
get around.”
Having such a certification
would be “another safeguard that
would help us in making a decision on these very costly investments,” she said.
Don Bolen, general manager of
training technology for Delta Airlines in Atlanta, agreed that the
certification would be a plus, but
said it would not be his only due
diligence tool when vetting responses from RFPs.
“One of the best practices we
discovered was talking to companies that have actually implemented certain content on a particular
LMS, to see if it’s been successfully
deployed,” Bolen said.
Also, Bolen cautioned, certifications are not necessarily bulletproof. “When we were vetting
LMS vendors, a couple said they
were AICC compliant, but we had
problems loading AICC compliant
content,” he said. Earlier this year,
Delta chose an LMS from Pathlore
of Columbus, Ohio.
Contact info:
ADL: Mark Oehlert (703) 575-4341;
www.adlnet.org
Latest Plugfest Dubbed A
Success; 220 Groups Show
At the most recent Advanced
Distributed Learning (ADL)
Plugfest event, held July 30-Aug. 1
at the Defense Acquisition University at Fort Belvoir, Va., 68 elearning infrastructure firms, 46
authoring tool vendors and 106
content providers showed up to
-6test content-platform interoperability based on the Sharable
Courseware Object Reusable Model (SCORM) specifications in lab
settings.
The session attracted training
vendors, U.S. government agencies and Fortune 500 firms. It focused on testing the latest content
sequencing specification from IMS,
a set of rules that establishes a
framework for assembling learning objects.
“Up until now, we haven’t been
able to do sequencing except over
the Web in a proprietary way,”
said Phil Dodds, chief technical
architect of SCORM and a member
of the Institute for Defense Analysis. Two firms, IBM and Italian elearning firm GIUNTI Interactive
Labs, demonstrated Java-based
sequencing engines they had developed based on SCORM.
“Plenty of content was prepared
in advance to see if it worked [on
the trial sequencing engines] and it
did incredibly well,” Dodds said.
At earlier Plugfests, the technology that allowed content from various sources to work on different
platforms was in a more experimental stage, according to John
Alonso, chief technology officer
and founder of OutStart, a Bostonbased learning content management system vendor. But now,
plug-and-play software has matured considerably, to the point
where interoperability is expected.
While the e-learning standards
movement was more vendordriven a couple of years ago,
Alonso said demand from buyers
Sept. 6, 2002
has picked up as corporations
have bought into the concept.
“It’s no longer experimental,”
Alonso said. “While SCORM is not
yet a standard, it’s a requirement
on many contracts we bid on.”
Contact info:
OutStart: (617) 897-6800; www.outstart.com
Saba Stock Gains, While
Click2Learn, Centra Drop
Fueled by contract wins at
Volkswagen de Mexico, Cemex
and Kaiser Permanente, plus a renewal at Caterpillar and word of a
major upgrade with the U.S. Army, shares in learning management system firm Saba of Redwood Shores, Calif., rose 32.7% to
$2.72 for the two-week period
ended Aug. 30, a welcome change
after it had been declining since
early July.
E-learning content firm DigitalThink of San Francisco, which
had been in a freefall for much of
the year, continued its slow steady
climb away from penny stock territory during the period, with its
share price increasing 30% to
$1.56. While its financial results
have been disappointing, DigitalThink is leaner than it was earlier this year, has sufficient cash to
get it through several more quarters and has rolled out a more
open delivery platform.
Stock in Click2learn, a Bellevue,
Wash.-based e-learning platform
firm, continued its downward spiral as investors viewed its prospects as grim. The company is
low on cash, and contract news
has been scant. Its stock fell 25.5%
2002 Simba Information, Stamford, CT, (203) 358-4100. Copying prohibited.
-7-
Lifelong Learning Market Report
Sept. 6, 2002
Performance Of Public Training Company Stocks, 8/16/02-8/30/02
(prices as of market close)
Company
Saba
DigitalThink
Provant
Docent
WebEx
ProsoftTraining
SmartForce
SkillSoft
Franklin Covey (1)
New Horizons
Mentergy
EDT Learning (2)
Learning Tree Int’l
Centra
Click2learn
Ticker
SABA
DTHK
POVT
DCNT
WEBX
POSO
SMTF
SKIL
FC
NEWH
MNTE
EDT
LTRE
CTRA
CLKS
Average For ILT Firms
Average For E-Learning Firms
Average For Group
Average For Nasdaq Nat’l Mkt.
Stock Price
8/16/2002
$2.05
$1.20
$0.14
$0.60
$13.42
$0.26
$4.03
$9.62
$2.05
$6.75
$0.30
$0.64
$16.05
$1.70
$0.55
Stock Price
8/30/2002
$2.72
$1.56
$0.18
$0.76
$14.73
$0.28
$4.33
$10.31
$2.12
$6.94
$0.30
$0.63
$15.47
$1.38
$0.41
Price
Change
$0.67
$0.36
$0.04
$0.16
$1.31
$0.02
$0.30
$0.69
$0.07
$0.19
$0.00
-$0.01
-$0.58
-$0.32
-$0.14
%
Change
32.7%
30.0%
28.6%
26.7%
9.8%
7.7%
7.4%
7.2%
3.4%
2.8%
0.0%
-1.6%
-3.6%
-18.8%
-25.5%
$5.05
$3.41
$3.95
1,361.01
$5.00
$3.71
$4.14
1,314.85
-$0.05
$0.30
$0.19
N/A
-1.0%
8.8%
4.8%
-3.4%
YTD %
Change
-47.4%
-85.7%
-71.4%
-75.8%
-39.2%
-75.2%
-82.7%
-60.4%
-65.1%
-38.4%
-90.1%
-56.6%
-43.6%
-82.9%
-87.1%
-46.2%
-66.3%
-60.4%
-33.6%
(1) listed on the New York Stock Exchange
(2) listed on the American Stock Exchange
Source: Yahoo Finance, Simba Information. Copying prohibited.
to 41 cents per share on Aug. 30; it
has closed below $1 per share
since July 19.
Despite news of a contract win
with Cognex Corp., live e-learning
firm Centra saw its share price dip
18.8% during the two-week period
to $1.38 per share, wiping out a
brief runup on the heels of its last
earnings report.
Overall during the period, gainers led decliners 10-4 among the 15
public training companies tracked
by LLMR, with one company – elearning firm Mentergy – showing
no change as it closed at 30 cents
per share.
On average, shares of the 10 elearning firms in the group increased 8.8% to $3.71 per share,
while the average share price for
the five instructor-led firms fell 1%
to $5. The group average rose 4.8%
over the two weeks to $4.14 per
share; for the year-to-date, it is
down 60.4% from $10.45.
Contract News…
NTT Comware, a unit of Tokyobased telecom giant NTT Communications, has implemented a
learning management system from
Docent of Mountain View, Calif.,
to deliver customer training on
system development technology.
Karta Technologies of San Antonio, Texas, a provider of elearning content and services, and
systems integrator Systronics of
Dayton, Ohio, have been awarded
a multi-year contract worth up to
$3 million with the U.S. Air Force.
The semiconductor products
group of Palo Alto, Calif.-based
Agilent Technologies has implemented an enterprise communications platform from InterWise of
Cambridge, Mass.
Tulsa, Okla.-based bakery goods
firm Bama Industries has pur-
2002 Simba Information, Stamford, CT, (203) 358-4100. Copying prohibited.
Lifelong Learning Market Report
chased the ToolBook authoring
tool from Click2learn of Bellevue,
Wash.
Hilton Hotels of Beverly Hills,
Calif., has upgraded an existing
contract with EDT Learning of
Phoenix, perpetually licensing
EDT’s learning management system to support its Hilton Academy.
The U.S. Air Force intends to
negotiate a sole source contract for
automated information systems
training with Aegis Research
Corp. of Falls Church, Va. The
contract is valued between $25,000
and $100,000.
News Briefs…
IT classroom trainer ExecuTrain
of Alpharetta, Ga., has opened a
new franchise center in Orlando,
Fla. Through an agreement between ExecuTrain and local IT
trainer The Dershya Institute, the
latter will become ExecuTrain of
Orlando.
Classroom trainer New Horizons Worldwide of Santa Ana,
Calif., will become a reseller of the
business skills content from CDI
Education Corp. of Toronto at its
270 centers worldwide.
-8integrated with portal software
from Plumtree of San Francisco.
Also, Conference Center components have been certified as compatible with the CleverPath Portal
from Computer Associates of Islandia, N.Y.
Learning management system
firm Docent of Mountain View,
Calif., has struck a three-year comarketing and co-selling partnership with GeneEd of San Francisco, a provider of e-learning content
for the life sciences industry, in
which the content will be bundled
with Docent Enterprise.
IT and business skill courseware
firm Element K of Rochester, N.Y.,
has become an authorized provider of content that will map to the
Security+ certification program
from CompTIA of Lombard, Ill.,
due out this fall.
Classroom IT trainer ExecuTrain
of Alpharetta, Ga., has struck a
deal to make it the exclusive provider of certified training content
for Peachtree Software, a provider
of accounting software.
GeoMetrix Data Systems of Victoria, British Columbia, has
formed a co-marketing and coselling agreement with Trainersoft
of Raleigh, N.C., while integrating
GeoMetrix’ Training Partner LMS
with Trainersoft’s authoring tool.
Partnerships…
Live online business communication/e-learning firm PlaceWare
of Mountain View, Calif., has
struck deals with two enterprise
portal software firms. PlaceWare’s
Conference Center product will be
People In The News…
Online business communication
software firm InterWise of Cambridge, Mass, has named Linton
Moulding as its chief financial
Sept. 6, 2002
officer, replacing the departed
John Thompson. Moulding had
been CFO of Instron Corp. of Canton, Mass., a manufacturer of digitally controlled systems, instruments and software.
Barry Stockwell has been named
vice president of corporate alliances for e-learning platform firm
Click2learn of Bellevue, Wash.
Stockwell had been vice president
of strategic relations for IT outsourcing firm Centerbeam of Santa Clara, Calif.; previously, he held
the same position for four years at
e-learning firm SmartForce of
Redwood City, Calif.
David Yager has resigned as
president of Latitude360, the elearning division of IT services
firm RWD Technologies of Columbia, Md., for personal reasons.
RWD CEO Robert Deutsch will
act as interim president of Latitude360.
Live e-learning firm Centra of
Lexington, Mass., has named Paul
Daly as its senior vice president of
worldwide sales and marketing.
Daly had been president of Baan
Americas, a unit of the Netherlands-based e-business solutions
firm. Also, Chris Reed, Centra’s
vice president of corporate strategy, has left to take a similar position at Unicru of Beaverton, Ore., a
provider of recruiting software.
Terry Nulty has resigned his position as president of IT
courseware firm Element K of
Rochester, N.Y., for personal reasons, according to a company
spokesperson; there are currently
no plans to replace him.
2002 Simba Information, Stamford, CT, (203) 358-4100. Copying prohibited.