Here is my attempt at “Elluminate Cubed”. I have used Elluminate many times over the past couple of years and it grows on me each time I use it.

http://www.elluminate.com/

FACE 1: MARKET FOCUS

Elluminate provides web, video, and audio solutions for online learning and according to Elluminate.com they serve “more than 600 million annual web-collaboration minutes to over 7 million teachers and students located in 170 different countries”.

FACE 2: TYPES OF OFFERINGS

Elluminate has several offerings that are explained in detail through the links below including:

Elluminate Learning Suite™. – a full package of products

Elluminate Live!® features voice over the Internet, interactive functionality, upports multiple platforms and low-bandwidth connectivity.

Elluminate Next>™ bundle combines Elluminate Plan!™ and Elluminate Publish!™

Elluminate vSpaces™ single-room configurations of Elluminate Live!

Elluminate Bridges a tool that provides integration with learning and content management systems.

Elluminate VCS™ is an affordable  multipoint video collaboration product for desktop users.

LearnCentral™ is a social learning network for education, sponsored by Elluminate.

FACE 3: THE BUYER

School Districts or governing educational groups, individual educators and business.

If you are a BC educator you can have free access provided by Learnnowbc. A single meeting can be booked  or you can reserve a long-term meeting room for up to one year. Click here for more information: http://www.learnnowbc.ca/lnbcresources/elluminate/

FACE 4: GLOBAL MARKETS

As the internet expands and computer access improved within education there is potential for classrooms to meet and connect globally. This meeting platform allows for easy interactivity that incorporates, audio, video, text and more.

FACE 5: DEVELOPMENT OF THE MARKET

There are several reviews and articles about Elluminate:

http://www.elluminate.com/press/articles.jsp

The company is located in Calgary, Alberta and Pleasanton, California and claims to Ellumiate claims, to be the choice of “ Apple Computer, California State University, Florida Virtual School, Georgetown University, K12 Inc., London Knowledge Lab, Los Angeles Unified School District, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Novell, Queen’s University, Royal Veterinary College, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and many more.”

According to their website they are the one of “Deloitte’s 50 Fastest Growing Technology Companies and is positioned in the Visionaries Quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing, 2009”.

FACE 6: LEARNING TECHNOLOGY COMPETITION WITH OTHER FORMS OF LEARNING

The Elluminate services are very useful and have great potential in the market. A set back (or competition) is the every growing development of free Web 2.0, & 3.0 tools. Many of these tools provide similar functions including online chat, whiteboard, and texting capabilities. As second struggle that the company will encounter is convincing educators to change their practice to incorporate virtual meeting spaces over face to face. Ellumiate has many market challenges and must keep current with the many emerging new technologies in order to survive.

Here is a short video found on Youtube introducing Elluminate:

I decided to “CUBE” Desire2Learn as this is one of the learning management systems I have had experience using as an online teacher.  Their corporate website may be found at http://www.desire2learn.com/.

Face 1 – Market Focus

Public Schools (in particular, middle and secondary schools) and higher educational institutions.  Alternatively, corporations, associations, healthcare and government agencies may find use in D2L products to training and educate their employees.

Face 2 – Types of Offerings

Desire2Learn’s (D2L) flagship product is its learning management system called the Desire2Learn Learning Environment.  This is an educational infrastructure-type product.  D2L’s Learning Environment is a web-based system that allows administrator and instructor users to create, teach, deliver, and manage course content to potential student users.  This extensive and complex platform includes systems such as grading, internal communication, and user database.

D2L also offers other services including delivery, hosting, content, training and support.

Face 3 – Who is the Buyer?

For public schools, the buyer is likely to be a school district as opposed to a single school itself.  This is due to the relatively high cost of the system which would not make it feasible for a school to purchase it for its own use.  Upper school board management or school district e-learning staff would likely make the purchasing decisions.

For higher education institutions, since staff and student populations are generally larger than elementary or secondary schools (and therefore have greater budgets), individual faculties or the entire institution itself may choose to purchase D2L’s learning management system to deliver or support its courses.

Larger healthcare, corporations or government agencies, where there is a need to train and educate large numbers of staff members, may choose to use this learning management system for these purposes.

Face 4 – Global Markets

As internet access expands across the world, so too is the growth of online education.  Public schools, higher educational institutions, corporations, healthcare, and government agencies around the globe, where internet access is widely available, are the target markets for D2L.

Face 5 – Development of the Market

D2L’s vision is to be a global leader in providing e-learning solutions to their clients.  They have won a number of awards for technology innovation; however, these awards were presented by North American based associations and institutions.  In order for D2L to meet their global market aspirations, greater computer and internet access in regions with restricted or poor availability needs to be realized.  Though this may be beyond the scope of D2L’s line of products and services, infiltrating these markets by providing products and solutions that meet their current technology capabilities may help to develop and expand D2L’s global market.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

For various reasons, many educators who use traditional methods of teaching (e.g. chalkboard, paper and pencil exercises) may refuse to or be afraid to integrate technologies in their teaching practices.  However, most would still agree that computer skills are a highly important component of a modern education, especially since these skills are transferable to many potential occupations.  Encouragement through professional development, training, and follow up support are necessary to assist colleagues with technology use.

D2L’s Learning Environment could be used in conjunction with traditional teaching approaches following a blended learning model or be used to replace traditional classroom teaching and learning by placing courses completely online.

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro is software used to create information and general presentations, online training materials, web conferencing, learning modules, and user desktop sharing. The product is entirely Adobe Flash based.  This product could be used by many organizations including government, corporate institutions and universities.  http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/elearning/ .

The Market

At quick look this product is very multifunctional.  In keeping with the elearning market niche Connect Pro could be used by high schools, universities and corporations who are interested in online training.  Really anyone who wants to make a presentation could use it so it may even be a useful tool for elementary schools.

Types of Offerings

Adobe offers Connect Pro as  software that could be used to build infrastructure within an organization.  It is a program that allows the user to create content, deliver training and manage the participants. 

Who is the Buyer?

This product would most likely be purchased by a large corporation under license or governmental agencies to have all instructors use the product for training their employees.  Teachers or independent instructors could buy single copies of the software and invite their students to attend their e-course as all the students will need is a web browser and the Adobe Flash Player.  My expectation is that Connect Pro is used mostly in higher education for classroom modules or entire web based courses.  I would expect students themselves would not be purchasing this software but either the instructor or a centralized official would purchase and mandate its use across an organization.

Global Market

This product can is available in many languages including English, French and Spanish and is useful anywhere there is reliable internet infrastructure.

Development of the Market

Connect Pro is supported in any market where reliable internet infrastructure is present and language spoken is English, French or Spanish.   The instructor or organization supports the use of the product through their funding the user or learner only needs internet access.  Many universities, governments and corporations can import the software by license agreements or low investment hosting by Adobe. 

Competition with Other Forms of Learning

Connect Pro will work best with well developed learning systems.  Developed nations with reliable internet structures will be able to use Connect Pro in unison with existing forms of learning.  Connect Pro will provide options for organizations to increase learning opportunities for users who are looking for alternative mediums to train or educate themselves.

Faronics Insight ©  http://www.faronics.com/html/Insight.asp is a networked computer software that can be used to train and monitor computer use across multiple workstations.

Face 1: Market Focus Insight targets the educational and business markets

Public school, higher ed and business training.

Face 2: Types of Offerings

Content and Infrastucture

Face 3: Who is the Buyer?

Bought regionally (provincial school boards, municipal libraries) or at a faculty level in universities and colleges. Large business may also be a buyer.

Face 4 – Global Markets

Wired Anglophone and European market with language skills

Face 5 – Development of the Market

Market Supports Import of Content and Infrastructure Category.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Works With a Well-Developed Learning System

Interestingly this program is a piece of tech that facilitates tech ed  and is therefore a self fulfilling niche. It requires networked workstation and IT personnel to help set up and  troubleshoot, but the software is quite user friendly.

The Insight software not only allows for live multi-workstation demos but students/learner peer present and can pose questions on the fly, in an anonymous fashion if so chosen. I see this as an extremely valuable tool for knowledge building communities.

NGRAIN is an electronic training development company which specializes in 3D simulation technologies.  More specifically, NGRAIN has focused on equipment training programs, virtual task training and maintenance support systems using interactive equipment simulations.

Many of their products and services take the form of interactive, explodeable 3D representations of complex machinery and equipment such as aircraft engines, military weapons or off-shore oil rigs.  Their goals are to accelerate training, increase first-time performance, minimize downtime, streamline operations and optimize worker performance in general.

Face 1 – Market Type

To date NGRAIN has focused on the training needs of government, military and corporate training needs.  NGRAIN’s customers include all branches of the United States and Canadian militaries, as well as leading manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Standard Aero, Northrop Grumman, and CAE.

Face 2 – Type of Offering

NGRAIN’s focus is to provide consulting, designing and development services to their clients.  They create 3D training solutions by consulting with the client and designing models, applications and courses that are deliverable over average computer systems as opposed to custom or expensive workstations.

Although the creation of custom models and application is where they began, NGRAIN has also developed a number of “off-the-shelf” solutions that can be implemented with simple technical and training data provided by the customer.

Face 3 – Who is the buyer?

NGRAIN’s business model is based on a corporation or government entity purchasing the content for the learner.

Face 4 – Global Market

NGRAIN has focused on two global markets: wired Anglophone countries and special (military/maritime) situations.  They have had no major issues reaching these markets and have made significant progress in the North American Market both in the private and public sector.

Face 5 – Market Development

I would say that the market NGRAIN caters to is highly developed.  Large Western corporations, military and government agencies are among some of the earliest adopters of educational technology used for training.  This market is not only well established but has fairly deep pockets and the justification for accurate, high-quality training such as 3D simulations and interactive scenarios.  The potential costs of downtime in these markets are often very large and extend beyond the financial to include the safety and well-being of those trained.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Integration

NGRAIN focuses on content development but has made strides in meshing their content with established learning systems.  Many of their materials are designed to fit within established learning management systems or be delivered along with traditional training methods.

This company does not wish to replace traditional training methods such as hands-on time with equipment, traditional class-based learning or on-the-job training but provide a new, supplemental view of equipment and tasks which is unavailable any other way.

PBworks, formally called PBwiki, is a collaboration service that has taken advantage of the growth in popularity of wikis. Their website claims: “PBworks is the world’s largest provider of hosted business and educational workspaces. We host over 800,000 workspaces, serve millions of users per month, and 96% of PBworks business users would recommend PBworks to a friend.”

Face 1 – Market Focus

I actually had a little difficulty with this. What is their market focus? Public schools, higher education, or corporate training needs? Their service seems blended. Although, their website does indicate that their major markets would be higher education and corporate consumers. PBworks has separate services, such as “Project Edition” and “Campus Edition”, which seems to support this multi-market ambition.

Face 2 – Types of Offering

PBworks is mainly a service providing a product and infrastructure for managing course and students content; although, wikis can be used for numerous other things, including asynchronous communication.

Face 3 – Who is the buyer?

I see two options here, being:

• “Learning bought for Learner” – perhaps, for example, it is mainly for higher education courses where the instructors wish to include wikis in the course; and
• “Learning Bought Centrally” – perhaps, for example, a university or schools district has adopted the idea of wikis and wishes to provide this type of learning environment for the entire institution.

This seems evident in the various packages that they provide.

Face 4 – Global Markets

PBworks is mainly focused on “Wired Anglophone Countries, although there is a small market in other areas.

Face 5 – Development of the market

PBwork saw a niche in the market. MediaWiki and Wikispaces would be the two other major competitors; however, PBworks, perhaps seeing the growth of wikis in education and corporate use, simplified the enduser’s experience with wikis. The international market freely imports content and infrastructure, although I’m not aware of many (if any) local companies that produce wiki packages.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

PBworks would fit under the category: “Learning Technology Substitutes for Others Forms of Learning”. For one thing, their product and service may have to compete with the various LMSs, other Social Media platforms, such as NING, blogging platforms and other services, such as Google Docs. But that’s just “eLearning”. PBworks would have to compete with face-to-face appracs to collaborative approaches to learning.

Rosetta Stone  is a second-language learning software which pairs a combination of images, text, and sound with new language vocabulary. This removes the ‘translation’ step and allows the learner to attach the new language to real objects rather than their native language words.  This approach more closely mimics how people learn their first language as children. The projected total revenue of $245.0 to $248.0 million of 2009 includes their recent (April 15, 2009) IPO on the NYSE under the symbol RST. (from www.RosettaStone.com)

Face 1 – Market Focus

Rosetta Stone claims to be “a leading provider of technology-based language learning solutions”. A large portion of their sales is to retail outlets for consumer training but they offer online versions and various bundling options for schools and corporations.

Face 2 –  Types of Offerings

Rosetta Stone offers pre-packaged content for second language learners starting with beginner levels up to common conversational.

Face 3 – Who is the Buyer?

Retail buyers are purchasing the products directly for their own use.  Schools and corporations purchase licenses for their students or employees.

Face 4 – Global Markets

Rosetta Stone’s products are sold in 150 countries, teaching over 30 languages.  It has an international focus and fills wired Anglophone countries, European countries with English language skills, European countries requiring translation, and Asian countries with quality internet.

Face 5 – Development of the Market

In the case of Rosetta Stone the “Market Supports Export Oriented Learning Technologies and Substitution of Imports” is the most representative.  Other companies can (and do) make language-learning software but Rosetta Stone is a leader in many markets.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

As a prepackaged product, Rosetta Stone products are often a substitute for other forms of learning. In a school or corporate setting the technology may be used to support other systems of learning.

http://www.lynda.com/
Lynda.com is a major provider of online training. They offer prepackaged video and interactive tutorials for nearly all of the popular software applications that are used in the design and development environments. This ranges from basic lessons in writing a Word document, to complex and intricate lessons on texture and lighting in 3-D modeling applications.

Face 1: Market Focus
Because Lynda.com has so many resources that cover so many applications, they have a very broad market focus. They mainly differentiate the markets based on pricing and access to their resources. For instance, public schools would most likely invest in a few lessons for the applications that they use, but at a multi-user price point. Higher education and corporations may look at larger site licenses, or they may opt to have the end users purchase only what they need.

Face 2: Types of Offerings
Lynda’s offerings are mainly pre-packaged content, either available online subscription or by purchasing hard copies of the software or videos.

Face 3: Who is the Buyer?
Again, because of the large market focus, there are many types of buyers. Single package licenses are available for individual learners, right up to large corporate site licenses, where all employees have access to all of the available resources on company computers.

Face 4 – Global Markets
As they are produced in English, the main users of Lynda’s resources would be wired Anglophone countries, European countries with language skills, and possibly, thanks to the closed captioning, European countries requiring translation.

Face 5 – Development of the Market
Lynda would fall under the category of “Market Supports Export Oriented Learning Technologies and Substitution of Imports.”  It is assumed with this sort of resource that the market is always ready to accept the newest technologies, and that end-users will need training to run them effectively, or more importantly, competitively.

Face 6 – Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning
Because of its prepackaged nature, the resources that Lynda provides would be a substitute for other forms of learning. These tutorials and videos could be used in addition to other forms of instruction, but there would likely be a lot of redundancy. That being said, these resources may not meet the learning needs of everyone using them, so having a proficient instructor would be important for success, especially in that K-12 environment.

Froguts is an interactive simulation program offering 3D virtual dissections and biology lessons.

See the demo.

Market Focus

This program would be beneficial for middle schools, high schools and higher education. It could be used in schools, for home schooled students, or any student wanting an additional, alternative method of learning.

Types of Offerings

The main offering of this program is content. Lessons are system based and integrate anatomy, physiology and ecology through interactive simulations. The online dissections can eliminate the need for actual animal dissections.

Who is the buyer?

The buyer could include School Districts, Principals, Technology Coordinators, Curriculum Coordinators, teachers, students, and/or parents. In CUBE terms: “learning bought centrally”, “learning bought for learner”, or “learner buys personally”.

Global Markets

The software requires a computer (PC or Mac) and requires the internet for the inital activation. As far as I could see it is only offered in English so the market for this product are wired anglophone countries such as Canada, USA, Australia, UK, Ireland, and NZ.

Devlopment of the Market

The market imports content and infrastructure and supports export oriented learning technologies and substitution of imports.

Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning

This program works with a well-developed learning system but also can be viewed as a substitute to dissections for reasons of costs, animal rights, and the environment.

Skillsoft (NASDAQ: SKIL) provides e-learning content and software to global enterprises, government, education and small-to-medium sized businesses.

Face 1: Market Focus
Skillsoft’s market focus is on providing e-learning solutions for businesses; although, some universities and government organizations have used Skillsoft products to provide support and training to their employees..

Face 2: Types of Offerings
Skillsoft offers services, content and infrastructure.

Services
Some of the services include consulting services, technical services, solution services, custom development services, and customer support. These services intend to help organizations meet their e-learning objectives. Another service the company offers includes IT certification solutions.

Content
Skillsoft provides companies with the tools and services to author and develop custom content. They have a custom solutions group that creates courseware and they also have tools such as Dialogue, for web collaboration, and SkillStudio, to customize and create courses. Other content offered by the company include book collections or resources, like Books 24×7, and course collections.

Infrastructure
Open Learning Services is another service offered by Skillsoft to address Learning Management System (LMS) and Portal Integration.

Face 3: The Buyer
Buyers will be typical of training since the products and services are targeted mostly towards corporations and small-to-medium businesses where learning is bought for the learner with the option of the learner buying for one’s self – say a learner paying fees for one of the Skillsoft certification courses for example. Other buyers may include the government, where learning is bought nationally.

Face 4: Global Markets
Skillsoft’s presence is global and its services appear to be available mainly for countries and clients with excellent internet Infrastructure.

Face 5: Development of the Market
The market supports the import of content and infrastructure and supports export oriented learning technologies and substitution of imports.

Face 6: Learning Technology Competing with Other Forms of Learning
Skillsoft offers a variety of products and services which enable them to compete with existing learning systems. Some of their products handle upgrading credentials of employees as well as help support more effective training and development. A blended learning approach to courses helps Skillsoft provide more effective, customized learning and training solutions that respond to the needs of the client.