I haven't seen the actual gartner survey yet but based on the interview posted this morning in Campus Technology it apparently points to two interesting trends:

1. Many are moving to open source (partially driven by a rejection of Blackboard's behavior).
2. A non-trivial amount are moving toward "home grown" though it appears that this is more about "assembling" from small pieces loosley joined, rather than the traditional "build."

It's not at all surprising that Gartner Research Director Marti Harris says:

[Blackboard is] seen as [having] a certain arrogance to think that they developed something [themselves], when so many academics feel they've contributed to it all along. I can't speak to the legal issues at hand, but that's the perception, and it's global. I hear that wherever I go.

So has the suit had an impact on our clients? One thing I hear from clients is that it's irritating to think that their license fees are going to support a big legal battle. They feel as if they're paying for that.

It's good to know that Blackboards customers realize they are paying for senseless litigation driven by arrogance instead of product innovation or support.

It's also interesting that Gartner believes it's accelerating interest in Desire2Learn, Sakai, and Moodle. I've been living and breathing the movement toward open source for some time so none of this is surprising.

What's really interesting is point #2 about the trend toward assembling solutions based on Web 2.0 applications living out in the cloud (if you're playing buzzword bingo you just scored). I was in Sausalito last week with some customers and Michael Korcuska talking about future directions and Nate Angell whipped together an example that mirrors much of the functionality found in Sakai/Moodle/Blackboard/Etc. using Ning as the base framework and tools like Hiveminder, pbWiki, and DabbleDB. Keep an eye out for a Jing screencast of what he did. It's representative of what many are doing on campus today.

I'm glad to see the Sakai community recognizing this and envisioning a future in which Sakai plays a role making it more effective to do that sort of thing while dealing with some of the things that make assembling something like that difficult, hard to support, or hard to scale.

I had to leave a before the end of the Sun ERC conference yesterday to catch a flight but I participated in a few very worthwhile sessions earlier in the day. The opening sessions were excellent. Greg Papadopoulos kicked things off with a discussion of cloud computing. His talk wove together the central idea of sharing to create communities, and communities creating markets with some of the changes we're seeing as a result of the commoditization of technology services, as well as the interplay between open source software and software as a service.

The next act was a very entertaining and thought provoking talk about the characteristics and evolution of generations from the G.I. Generation to the Millenials. I'll probably be reading his book "Millenials Rising" soon. I snapped a couple of shots from his slides but they didn't come out very well.

The whole event is recorded so if you have some time and didn't make the event you might check it out.

After lunch I participated in a repeat panel session on administrative computing with Casey Green (Campus Computing Project), Jonathan Markow (JA-SIG), Robert Sherratt (University of Hull), Jay Visvanathan (Sun). The session focused on administrative systems like Kuali Financial System, uPortal, CAS, Kuali Student, and in general, the impact of open source in this area and the challenges. The challenges discussed were, not suprisingly, about people, change, and processes rather than technology. One of the key challenges we discussed a bit was what I'll call the "consumability" of open source software. There's a belief that open source software doesn't fit into the accepted procurement practices, that the cost structures and risk analysis is very different, etc. Casey noted the rather significant rise of enterprise open source (10% of the schools responding to the Campus Computing Survey said they'd standardized on an open source eLearning platform). Robert also discussed the University of Hull's recent selection of Sakai and how they evaluated the viability of the communities and commercial support for the open source contenders as they did the viability of the companies for the proprietary choices. I commented on the spectrum of open source adoption. On one end, you have institutions that consume open source software the same way they've consumed proprietary software in the past. They purchase it from a company like rSmart or Sun using standard procurement practices, they get training, implementation support, legal assurances, a number to call when there's a problem, and regular software updates and maintenance. On the other end of the spectrum institutions download the software, compile and deploy it themselves, and have developers and system engineers to maintain and support it on campus. Of course it's not black and white. One of the great things about open source is that institutions have a choice and can find the point along that spectrum that suits them best at any point in time. From a participation and contribution perspective, institutions at either end of the spectrum contribute to the community in different ways: At the "consume" end, the school is paying a commercial organization who is immersed and contributing on their behalf; At the "DIY (do it yourself)" end the school is typically engaged directly writing code, testing, and contributing in a variety of ways.

I'm here at Sun's Education Research Community Conference today in San Francisco where the theme of the conference is "The Power of Communities." Throughout the event so far participants have been engaged in dialog about the various aspects of community and how the value of participation and contribution in various communities is realized by various stakeholders. Sun and other corporate participants discussed many ways in which participation in open source communities has been a driver of innovation and a closer more collaborative connection to their customers. Students spoke about the value of learning using open source technologies and the value of participating in open source communities. Educators from a variety of institutions all over the world shared ways that open source software and participation in open communities is giving them new tools and new ways to engage learners.

At the opening session Joe Hartley presented an interesting idea he referred to as the personal community map. See photo below. Joe visually mapped his own involvement in various communities based on his level of commitment to the community and the corresponding value to him and to the community. It's an interesting way to think about it.

Yesterday afternoon during one of the general sessions I peeked at my iPhone to see what was going on and I scanned the headlines in one of my Google alerts. Just below an article about Sun's completion of the MySQL acquisition was another article in the steady stream of dismay at Blackboard's "victory" over Desire2Learn.

The event here in San Francisco really highlights for me the stark contrast between a company like Sun and a company like Blackboard. Sun's is clearly aligned with the values of the education community. Today's dialog has been an open, participatory dialog between the people of Sun, their customers, their partners, and even student 'ambassadors.' During one of the sessions someone asked a question about how Sun would recoup the investment in MySQL and part of the response was the transformative value to Sun of the MySQL community culture. This is a company clearly interested in creating business value in harmony with their various communities... including the education community.

Blackboard, on the other hand, is a company who's actions are simply misaligned with the values of the education community. They are a bad actor who's aggressive and offensive use of a bad software patent is stifling a space that needs competition and the innovation capacity of communities like Sakai and Moodle. The recent verdict awarded Blackboard $3.1M and the right to request an injunction preventing Desire2Learn from selling it's product in the United States, which they've apparently done. The verdict is disappointing but predictable given the patent's current standing with the USPTO and the track record of the East Texas court. I'll be very surprised if the patent holds up to the scrutiny of the pending re-examination. The most disturbing thing about this whole mess to me is the waste. Millions of dollars of the education community's license fees paid to Blackboard and Desire2Learn aren't going into R&D, they aren't being used to innovate and provide better products or services, the money is being used to 'cheat the system' to achieve one goal: Total domination of the eLearning market at all cost. How long will the education community continue to fund their behavior? I empathize with customers of Blackboard's who feel locked in. Fortunately there are now alternatives like Sakai and Moodle that have become attractive alternatives. For many of Blackboard's customers who are facing a migration anyway, especially the WebCT customers, the timing might be just right to get on a better path. A path that leverages the "power of communities" to further the impact of technology in scholarly endeavors and improve access to education.

Other key resources to learn more about the verdict, the patent, and the pending re-examinations:
Blackboard Wins Patent-Infringement Case Against Rival Courseware Provider, The Chronicle

Our 'official response' from the Sakai Foundation on Michael Korcuska's blog

Michael Feldstein's blog

Steven Down's summary of others' comments

Yahoo Pipe for Bb patent news

Local software firm loses patent suit, The Record