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Blackstone And Vista Equity To Acquire Ellucian
In 2019, we mentioned in our newsletter that TPG Capital and Leonard Green were getting ready to sell Ellucian in a potential $5 billion-plus sale. After 18 months, on June 14, Blackstone and Vista Equity announced that they would soon acquire this major player in the higher education ERP industry. With this acquisition, Vista Equity…
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PowerSchool and EAB to Acquire Hobsons’ Products
On February 18, 2021, the edtech world learned that parts of Hobsons were about to be dismantled and sold to two companies. Naviance and Intersect products will soon be part of the PowerSchool portfolio, an acquisition marked at $320 million, while Starfish will be transferred to EAB for about $90 million. In one of our…
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White Space Opportunities in EdTech
With the new year, I wanted to highlight one of the most common requests we got in 2020. With many companies looking to find creative solutions to expand their client base, we have offered to several clients our version of a white space analysis. At its core, a company wants to grow. There are two…
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Anthology: a Collection of 14 Different Products Under Three HigherEd IT Companies
July 7, 2020, marked a turning point in the HigherEd IT sphere. On that day, Veritas Capital (“Veritas”) and Leeds Equity Partners (“Leeds Equity”), two private investment firms, announced the joining of education technology companies: Campus Management, Campus Labs, and iModules, to create one of the biggest consortiums in HigherEd IT. And as of November…
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Facial Recognition Software – Future EdTech
This technology not only helps in admitting only registered students on campus, it also provides surveillance of the students’ learning in the classroom.
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Current Trends in the Higher Ed SIS Market 2010 – 2018
The article is Cross-posted at Moran Technology Consulting By: Charlie Moran, Sr. Partner & CEO, Moran Technology Consulting Justin Menard, CEO, ListEdTech Key points: New Student Information System (SIS) implementations have been plummeting since 2011 Small to medium-sized institutions with less than 10,000 students are more likely than larger institutions to install a new product…
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Blackboard’s Next Chapter: Beyond Features to Reach, Teach and Demonstrate
For years, the LMS market focused on feature parity; who has the best grade book or the most assessment tools? Those discussions are becoming secondary. At the recent Blackboard roadmap presentation during Building Blackboard Together 2026, the strategy centered on three measurable outcomes: Reach, Teach, and Demonstrate. It’s a subtle but important shift. The focus…
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Best of Breed versus Best of Suite: The Rise of Decoupled Ecosystems
Back in 2019, I dove into the ongoing debate between Best of Breed and Best of Suite strategies for higher education’s core administrative systems. At the time, the data showed a clear preference: only 14% of colleges and universities in the United States and Canada were managing multiple vendors for their Student Information System (SIS) and Enterprise Resource Planning…
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K-12 LMS Market Update & Insights: May 2026
Over the past decade, the K-12 Learning Management System (LMS) market has undergone significant consolidation and shifting user preferences. Our historical data shows that while some legacy systems have steadily declined, a clear trio of dominant platforms has emerged to capture the vast majority of the K-12 market share. Using the latest data from the…
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Redefining the HigherEd Chatbot Market: It’s No Longer About Market Share
The higher education chatbot market has moved well beyond its “early adopter” phase. It has now entered a profound structural transition. As a result, we are no longer talking about installation counts or leaderboard rankings. Instead, the focus has shifted toward high-stakes territory. This includes platform control, AI orchestration, governance, and total lifecycle ownership. The…
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Thesis: From Unit4 Spin‑Off to SIS Specialist
Launched in 2021 as a spin‑off from Unit4’s Student Information System division, Thesis emerged as a dedicated SIS provider with a clear focus on higher education. Backed by TA Associates, the move separated Unit4’s ERP and HCM solutions from its student systems, allowing Thesis to operate independently and modernize its offerings. Building on the legacy of Unit4’s…
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Blackboard, D2L, Instructure: the Future of AI in LMS
Last month, Anthology, D2L, and Instructure used their annual conferences to outline upcoming product roadmaps and long-term strategies. Moodle will do the same at its own event in September. Together, these gatherings highlight where the LMS market is headed. What stands out isn’t just the new features being announced, but the bigger bets each vendor…
