When I started my e-learning company back in 1999 everyone was talking about how all training was going to be online by 2010. It hasn’t happened at all, and even worse, flagship companies such as Saba, with a market cap of $142M and SumTotal, which was taken private by Vista Equity Partners in 2009 for about $160M didn’t perform as expected.
On the other side, companies such as BlackBoard, with a market cap of $1.45B and SkillSoft, with a market cap of $1.05B did much better. There hasn’t been a lot of innovation after this first generation of e-learning startups. However e-learning as an industry seems to be making a comeback with companies such as 2Tor, founded by Princeton Review’s John Katzman, getting a lot of attention after raising a $10M series A in June 2009 and $20M series B recently led by Highland to go after elite programs at elite schools.
The US market for self paced e-learning reached $16.7B in 2009, and is expected to grown to $23.8B by 2014 according to AmbientInsight. What does that mean? That the market opportunity is huge! The market is begging to be disrupted and shaken.
Even though most of the spending is done by corporations, the healthcare, higher education and PreK-12 segments are growing faster. What makes it even more interesting is that new devices such as the iPad create interesting opportunities to develop solutions for these growing segments. Imagine if someone could leverage the iPad, Twitter, Facebook, Zynga and other highly interactive and addictive solutions to go after the training market?
UPS had a lot of press lately about the use of video games to train the younger generations of truck drivers. Gaming is hot and portable devices are much better in handling multimedia applications. The ecosystem is ready for a second wave of innovative e-learning companies and I expect to see a lot of action there!
Agree, need innovation. Some is coming: TV's 'The Wire' Gets New Life In College Classrooms http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126021569&sc=fb&cc=fp
ReplyDeleteHi tandroid, thanks for your comment. The article you mention shows how multimedia elements are being reused for different purposes. A show that was intended to entertain is now being used to teach. If people start leveraging devices such as the iPad, platforms such as Twitter, and games such as Farmville then it all boils down to the creative packaging and the design of the learning experience. This multi-billion dollar industry is ready for innovation, one more time!
ReplyDeleteInnovative e-learning technology will be key for the real adoption of online learning. For example, semantic assessment systems for the descriptive answers instead of just multiple-choice ones to measure creative skills of the learner and incentivize them. Ultimately creating the intelligent tutoring systems that can substitute human tutors or increase their productivity and create value for stakeholders.
ReplyDeleteAn easy to use semantic assessment solution would be great. There are a couple of companies specialized in assessments but they are far from achieving the impact innovative techniques can deliver. As you mention, if some of the technology applied in gaming relative to AI could be implemented to develop elearning tools then productivity in companies would increase and as a result their willingness to pay for those solutions would increase as well. I've hear from some entrepreneurs with exciting ideas and look forward to hearing more. Thanks for your comment Dharm.
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