[article no longer available]Thomson Announces Strategic Realignment of Operations; Company to Sell Education Businesses – MarketWatch
[tag]Thomson NETg[/tag] and [tag]SkillSoft[/tag] have been trading 1st and 2nd place in the [tag]enterprise e-learning[/tag] space for years. Yesterday, SkillSoft announced it is purchasing its biggest rival for about $285M.
NETg Sale Agreement Signed
* Thomson has agreed to sell NETg, a leading provider of continuing corporate education and training, to Skillsoft PLC (SKIL) for approximately $285 million. The sale is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2007.
This is a huge deal in the enterprise content provider industry. By combining the market share of these two companies, SkillSoft is positioned to have an unbelievable lead on the remaining competition.
Also, I’ve seen both companies’ systems from a client perspective. They both have excellent technologies. Combining these two powerhouses is a potentially huge win for their clients. Once they sort through the redundant course content, they can begin to think about how to integrate their delivery and administrative systems. Once they do that, assuming they do it well, they’ll have a very impressive set of tools.
I really think there is a lot of potential for serious gain for clients of both companies.
[tags]mergers & acquisitions[/tags]
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[...] Learning technology – with the merger of NETg and SkillSoft earlier this year, the content provider space now has a huge new leader. I hope it works out for customers as well as it should. I also hope to be able to focus more on blending the formal and informal learning opportunities that are out there. I’d love to start using wikis for some documentation projects, discussion groups for distance training, and podcasts for on-demand information, for example. [...]