http://www.xplanazine.com/2003/06/integration-by-way-of-merger-the-model-of-oracle-and-peoplesoft Thu, 04 Dec 2008 07:40:45 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 http://www.xplanazine.com/2003/06/integration-by-way-of-merger-the-model-of-oracle-and-peoplesoft#comment-417 Rob Reynolds Sun, 08 Jun 2003 03:59:00 +0000 http://www.xplanazine.com/2003/06/integration-by-way-of-merger-the-model-of-oracle-and-peoplesoft#comment-417 well, no surprise - I am far less optimistic than Rob that there could be anything good behind these mega-mergers. esp. this suggestion of how it might be a good thing for Blackboard to do like Oracle and just buy its competition. University of Oklahoma is a good example of a university that is dependent on a commercial course management system; it doesn't have the IT resources or a strong enough campus community to support an open source alternative campus-wide. ergo, they will have to acquire a commercial CMS: with the field narrowing from two to one? eek! in the world of mergers, could Blackboard become as unchallenged as a commercial CMS as Internet Explorer has become an unchallenged browser? well, it sure doesn't look like Internet Explorer is a better browser for having swept aside the competition: no tabbed browsing, no themes, nothing to help people creatively redesign their browser space even though they might spend the majority of their work time living in that browser space. I don't think browser software has benefited from Microsoft's market dominance; I don't think CMS software would benefit from Blackboard increasing its market dominance. shall I say it again? eek! well, no surprise - I am far less optimistic than Rob that there could be anything good behind these mega-mergers. esp. this suggestion of how it might be a good thing for Blackboard to do like Oracle and just buy its competition. University of Oklahoma is a good example of a university that is dependent on a commercial course management system; it doesn’t have the IT resources or a strong enough campus community to support an open source alternative campus-wide. ergo, they will have to acquire a commercial CMS: with the field narrowing from two to one? eek! in the world of mergers, could Blackboard become as unchallenged as a commercial CMS as Internet Explorer has become an unchallenged browser? well, it sure doesn’t look like Internet Explorer is a better browser for having swept aside the competition: no tabbed browsing, no themes, nothing to help people creatively redesign their browser space even though they might spend the majority of their work time living in that browser space. I don’t think browser software has benefited from Microsoft’s market dominance; I don’t think CMS software would benefit from Blackboard increasing its market dominance.
shall I say it again?
eek!

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