http://www.cpwire.com/archive/2003/11/4/1430.asp
This news release basically backs up what was coming out of Blackboard’s conference a few months back, that they are making money and finally turning a profit. But I thought it was worth posting because of this other line – “Blackboard`s yearly revenue was $620,000 in 1998 and $69.2 million in 2002” or in other words, a 11,047% growth in revenue in 4 years …
Obviously this period coincides with the wide-spread adoption of course management systems in higher ed. But during the same period, license fees for this product (and for some of its competitors) went from the low thousands of dollars per institution per year into the tens and even hundreds of thousands for the same periods and usages.
So it seems that the top few CMS companies are all finally turning a profit. This is no bad thing – it could bring some stability both to the players and to the pricing models, both of which can be benefits to customers. On the other hand, though, the full effect of this sector’s two main disruptors, open source and OKI, have yet to be full seen, so it seems a bit premature to start extraploating the revenue trajectories out into space. – SWL