Supportgate.com Partners With ActiveEducation to Offer Personalized e-Learning

Business Wire, March 24, 2000

Business Editors and High-Tech Writers

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 24, 2000

Supportgate.com and ActiveEducation announced today the launch of the new Supportgate.com online training through ActiveEducation's Web-based e-Learning program. Designed and implemented through ActiveEducation, the classes will be available to Technical Support Professionals Society (TSPS) Members in the Online Training section of www.supportgate.com.

Bill Rose, SSPA Founder/Executive Director indicates that this online educational program will be very beneficial to support professionals. Rose said, "The partnership between ActiveEducation and Supportgate.com provides all TSPS Members with the ability to go online enhance their technical skills and advance their careers. These courses are self-directed, state-of-the art and some of the best available today."

All of ActiveEducation's training courses on Supportgate.com have common instructional design elements focused on motivation, rapid skill development, knowledge retention and engaging the student throughout the learning experience. A few of the other key features include:

Personalization saves time -- Based on TSPS student responses to a pre-test, ActiveEducation's online training courses are generated instantly. Each course is customized to fit each TSPS student's specific needs. The ActiveEducation's programs are unique in providing this level of personalization.

No plug-ins, no downloads, no problems -- The e-Learning products require no plug-ins or download of any kind. TSPS students require only a Web browser and an Internet connection to use the online training products, which avoids hardware incompatibility problems or annoying downloads.

Return on investment -- ActiveEducation's comprehensive reporting feature allows management to monitor student's progress and assessment scores. This feature creates student accountability and offers management a measurable return on investment.

Instructor support anytime, anywhere -- TSPS students can email their questions to an expert instructor and receive an answer, typically within 25 hours.

Companion study books -- Available for all online courses, each book is a complete self-study course that serves as a valuable reference once the online course is completed.

According to Mike Jossi, CEO of ActiveEducation, "Our unsurpassed online training for Microsoft Office is a natural fit with Supportgate.com's offering of resources for support professionals. As the creator of many Microsoft Press training products, we understand what it means to offer high-quality online training services. ActiveEducation's experience in teaching Microsoft Office applications, combined with Supportgate.com's focus on creating a `home' for support professionals and executives, is a natural win-win relationship."

The Technical Support Professionals Society (TSPS) is a newly formed membership organization and is growing at an incredible rate. With over millions of support professionals throughout the world, Supportgate.com continues to develop multiple and diverse online benefits for TSPS Members.

About ActiveEducation

ActiveEducation develops and sells online training products for today's most needed information technologies using a mass-customizable delivery platform to businesses and schools. Students receive dynamically generated courses tailored to their individual needs, are supported online by instructors, and training managers can track student progress. Training from ActiveEducation is like taking a one-on-one session with an expert rather than sitting in a lecture hall with many other students.

ActiveEducation(TM) has been creating training products since 1993 and is one of an elite group that creates training content and products for Microsoft Press. ActiveEducation was selected by Microsoft Press to create four books for their popular Step-by-Step series, including Windows 2000. In short, Microsoft Press trusts us to teach the world how to use Microsoft software. ActiveEducation also creates and delivers custom Web-based training courses. Web-based courses are the best way to train employees, sales people, and customers.

About Supportgate.com

Supportgate.com builds Internet service communities. Through these "gates" you will find the individual organizations of Service Vendors Alliance, (SVA), Support Center Practices (SCP) certification, Technical Support Professionals Society (TSPS), Software Support Professionals Association (SSPA), and SSPA Europe.

The Supportgate.com Web portal site is "home" for service professionals and executives and features many opportunities such as Peer2Peer Connection Rooms; Member Showcases; Member2Member Information Exchange; Expert Connections; SupportBooks.com; Online Training and an industry specific Career Center. It also contains Conference and Events Calendars; a Virtual Tradeshow; Industry News; Surveys; SupportWeek.com and a Vendor Directory. Supportgate.com is the home for the Software Technical Assistance Recognition (STAR) Awards; the WebStar Awards; Support SuperStars Awards; SCP Site Certification and SSPA Individual Certification. For more information visit at www.supportgate.com.