Blackboard, Inc. (BBBB)

Education is it.

Why pay for a piece of a product that is easily forgotten, outdated, and policy vulnerable, especially when its so high above book value. Start 38.76

Revenue and assets do not reflect price. Software heavy and ready to have the rug pulled out from under them.

This is a tough call because they have a pretty wide moat and solid recurring income, but I think it's in danger.

As a student, this software is cumbersome to use, poorly designed, and years behind modern web app technology. They are relying on their existing deals with schools to keep them afloat rather than developing the innovation that this space desperately needs.

Companies producing poor software last only as long as it takes for the market to become large enough to attract competition. I think that time is near.

Virtual education cuts costs

REcent dip makes this attractive

This company makes some type of software for colleges and comments indicate that the software is quite good. Unfortunately, the company acquired its expertise by making expensive acquisitions that resulted in $267 million in goodwill. The earnings from all of this goodwill never seem to materialize. Trailing P/E ratio is 116.

The "Google" of educational software companies, according to a friend of mine who works for a university -- and his wife is a teacher. You can't really get around using Blackboard, for better or worse, if the institution you're working for is using this software. For better or worse, they're here to stay -- for a long, long time.

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Cost cutting environment in education and competition from cheaper/free services such as Moodle would seem to take away any kind of pricing power this company may have.

Not enough growth potential to warrant the speculation.

Blackboard will benefit from bailout money tagged to improve the financial situation of public education institutions.

As a student I cannot emphasize enough how great the product is. It is the perfect avenue for distributing powerpoints, assignments, and grades. Additionally, it provides discussion forums and even live chat to further immerse the student in education. This resource is invaluable to students and professors alike and has radically changed secondary education. More and more universities are jumping aboard and it's even beginning to make its way into high schools - a good sign! Finally, it's beginning to get enough marketshare to become similar to google/facebook in word association. Students use blackboard in their terminology on an everyday basis when discussing class or assignments. This one is a long term winner.

1. Free open source competitor

2.P/E = 171!

3. Market CAP almost a billion? Lol

I take classes at Hunter College and blackboard is used to communicate. The teachers post articles and assignments and you can connect to oed OXFORD .and other important sites through it. Once you sign on with your college id, you can almost go anywhere.
Some professors are exclusively using blackboard for everything.

Uniquely positioned. Defensible. Growing market.

We use Blackboard (Bb) at the university where I teach. Due to lower physical plant costs and a state subsidy for distance ed, our administration continues to encourage (even pressure) us faculty to teach virtual classes, and Bb is the "method of delivery," to use the current jargon. Even those of us who teach face-to-face use Bb to record grades, email students, distribute course materials, etc. Bb's competitors are far behind. I see this product as something like Microsoft Word: at one time there were many word processing software products, but even the superior ones fell by the wayside because Word had too big a head start. Bb is like that: I doubt any competitors will be able to catch up.

With the economic downturn, it may be a while before this one starts to outperform the S&P, but I expect good growth over the long term.

no moat :)

Kids going back to school because of the job market. schools need bbbb products to get organized.