Market Trends Update 2010

  • Content Authoring tools that offer their own LMS – albeit it is a lite version, which only accepts their content authoring tool courses
  • Many vendors hyping PowerPoint to Flash angle as key feature
  • Courses appearing in the market in a linear fashion, a result of people entering the space from a ILT background, it fits under this category, because vendors are not explaining the non-linear nor the true essence of WBT of courses
  • 57% offer a trial at various length, this is significantly higher than any other e-learning tool with over 40 vendors in the market
  • Low percentile that include a multi-lingual feature
  • Low percentile that offer advanced features for advanced developers who want to push the RCAT to the next level, but who do not want to use 100% Flash
  • Greater usage of open source content authoring tools, across all sectors, not just education and regardless of tech skill set or instructional developer background

Moving Forward in 2011

These should be considered standards for vendors in this space in 2011 or at least those who want a competitive edge

  • SAAS based
  • Collaborative feature – Review by multiple stakeholders, Q/A
  • CSS
  • Offer a trial, minimum 30 days – people have lots on their plate but still register or download at the time they see the product, and the trial should be the full version, how else can someone really get a sense of what the product can do
  • Offer an option for people who do not want to be contacted by your company/sales person, trust me, people like this, and if they like your product they still will buy it
  • Spell checker, multi-lingual capability
  • Scenario based or sim feature beyond the standard few branching that many come with
  • Provide the code to course authors/developers without having them go into the individual objects themselves
  • Embed features such as Widgets, Mashups – that people can find on the web or create themselves or that you offer, or that other end users can create and an exchange for people to share – exchanges in 2011 are going to grow in all e-learning spaces
  • M-Learning capability for tablets, thus the ability to use with OSs including Android – the Galaxy tablet sold 1M units in less than 4 weeks, projected total number of units by end of 2011 for all tablets close to 60M; and they are finding out that end users still have laptops too
  • iPad feature, the iPad 2 is coming out in Feb. 2011, the iPad accounts for 95% share of the market
  • Support for Office 2010
  • API capability, so courses can be deployed into social media sites that accept APIs, Facebook is one, there are others out there. In social networking alone, over 385 sites. Granted not all will accept courses – per their standards. At a minimum create a plug-in for WordPress