Frank wrote:
“belittling Blackboard for defending it’s property rights…”

I believe any ‘belittling’ done here has been either for perceived poor quality of product and/or support (a valid reason to lament), or for Blackboard attempting to lay claim to the property rights of *other people* (if the non-final ruling is accurate, which, given the aforementioned 3 to 7 instances of prior art, I would presume to be the case).

The free marked tends, as it should, to reward companies that have quality products, quality service, and (usually also those who at least overtly exhibit) sound ethical practices. Completely aside from their dubious legal dance, I personally feel that Bb has, in a measure, crowdsourced their QA process to their clients, which fails all three criteria. But my comment is based on my own experience, which may differ from those who have had no problems with either the Bb products or support. In their defense, I have heard talk of their realizing their mistakes in product and service and of their backpeddling to correct them. If this is true, then it is certainly commendable and may help to restore confidence. I do not mean to simply be negative, but I am afraid I am necessarily ‘once burned, twice shy’ due to how much rides on these matters for an institution.

On the issue of how college representatives may or may not be anti-capitalist because they criticize Blackboard’s patent litigation, I am neither anti-capitalist nor a college representative and yet I am strongly critical of Blackboard’s behavior. Before you make blanket condemnations about people who advocate a particular position, have the courtesy to read up on the position that they are advocating. There are many, many posts on this blog that explain why you can be pro-capitalist and still find Blackboard’s behavior objectionable.

On the issue of branding, while I would like to believe that the market is punishing Blackboard for it’s anti-competitive behavior, evidence is to the contrary. What I hear from customers leaving Blackboard, who are overwhelmingly WebCT CE customers so far, is that the reasons have to do with (a) the support issues that Sean mentions, (b) poor quality of support in general, and (c) increases in licensing costs. The patent issue may have made it somewhat easier for universities to feel good about their decision to move once it has been made but, as far as I can tell, nobody is leaving *because* of the patent. At best, it’s a “straw that broke the camel’s back” kind of thing.

Many interesting responses here, and some even sane. I am troubled with the analysis of Ed, but not his conclusions. Yes, I do believe that reputational damage has been done to BB in this fiasco, and that, given the choice, BB would not want to go down this path again. There were many trusted individuals within the company who were not informed of the decision before it went public. Legal eagles?…

However, Ed, I would not support the cause and effect relationship with many WebCT customers not renewing. WebCT was removed as a threat. Why would anyone willingly prolong their dependence on WebCT any longer than necessary when it could disappear from support overnight?

Don’t blame increased educational costs on Blackboard/D2L/Angel either. The cost of ANY LMS (and yes open source DOES cost something at the end of the day) is a miniscule line item in an institution’s budget.

We, as educators, developers and system administrators, have a social responsibility in educating the citizens of this country.

This responsibility goes far beyond the time everyone (including Blackboard) has wasted on this whole fiasco.

1. Their appeal against the USPTO ruling and their suit against Desire2Learn show that we have to budget for expensive legal action, if we (the College) want to enforce our interpretation of the Blackboard licence terms.

2. We have to survive the contingency of the product being discontinued for commercial reasons, and Blackboard’s business model does not include empowering clients to exit from their product, nor allow for independent agencies to gain sufficient expertise (nor permission) to repair it.

We should rationally prepare their exit plan and execute it when the cost is lowest. Because we are adding courses, content and students every year, delaying our exit probably increases our cost.

I would love Blackboard to negate these two considerations by (1) withdrawing their patent claims, (2) putting source code for the current versions into escrow to automatically become public domain when the current version is withdrawn from market, and (3) endorsing, informing and training third-party Blackboard customisation and maintenance services.

Until this happens, I’ll be recommending a competitor on IT governance grounds.

1. The posessive of “it” is “its”, not “it’s,” you drooling retard.
2. What in the name of f**k is “psychological behavior”?