Advantage Learning Systems acquires web development shop - Brief Article

Internet Strategies for Education Markets: The Heller Report, Feb, 2000

Advantage Learning Systems, Inc. (Wisconsin Rapids, WI, www.advlearn.com) has acquired computerActive, Inc. (Ottawa, Canada) in a move to expand its current offerings to a web-based platform and to offer new web-centric products. The cost of the acquisition has not been disclosed. Nor has the company announced specific plans for new products or a schedule for web-enabling their offerings. CEO Michael Baum will say that he expects to make web versions available over the next couple of years.

Baum emphasizes that the web represents an additional platform, not a conversion. He says that he does not yet see significant demand for web-based versions of Advantage Learning System's products, and he adds that he certainly doesn't expect to see Windows or even DOS disappear in the next two years. Baum is particularly interested in the web's ability to lower administration costs for schools and the ability to give schools platform independence.

The company has not yet formed any policies for licensing the new ability for students to access resources from their browser at home. Baum does say that the products are closely focused on classroom activities, so that ability is not significant to plans. Furthermore, he says the company will continue to offer paper-based communications with the home. "Depending on computers for communications is a mistake and an inequity," says Baum.

Advantage Learning has product in more than 47,600 K-12 schools. Their product line includes Accelerated Reader, STAR Reading, STAR Math, Accelerated Math and Perfect Copy, a writing skills software package. The company also provides teacher training through Reading Renaissance, Math Renaissance and Effective Teaching seminars. It sells test-generation software to educational publishers as well as enterprise software for training and knowledge management. For the nine months ending in September of 1999, revenues rose 65% to $62.1 million and income rose 81% to $14.3 million. The company credits that rise to increased sales of new math products, Accelerated Reader disks and Renaissance training sessions.

The purchase brings approximately a dozen people from the web development firm into the Advantage Learning engineering team. computerActive has previously served a wide range of industries. Its best known work in education is the design of CANARIE, a web product built for the Canadian Network for Advancement of Research, Industry, and Education which won one of the Canadian government's top technology prizes. The development team will remain in Ottawa.