Mirapoint and Blackboard Partner to Deliver Secure Hosted Email Solution for Universities, Colleges and K-12 Schools
Share:
Leading Educational Technology Provider and Leading Higher Education Messaging Provider Join Forces to Create a Single, Complete ASP Platform that Now Includes Hosted Email
Washington, DC, October. 24, 2006 - Mirapoint, a leading provider of secure messaging solutions, and Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB), a leading provider of enterprise software and services to the education industry, today announced that the companies are partnering to deliver a hosted email solution to K-12 schools, colleges and universities. As a result of this partnership, all members of academic institutions can now receive a complete hosted solution with email service that is secure and reliable.
"Email has long been an extremely important campus application for teaching and learning," said Richi Jennings, analyst and practice leader at Ferris Research. "Users have come to expect their email to be always available. By combining Mirapoint's messaging technology and Blackboard's experience in delivering hosted services, educational institutions can provide reliable, spam-filtered email services to students and faculty."
The Mirapoint-Blackboard ASP partnership provides a full featured professional email and calendar system - for both students and faculty - that students have come to expect as part of their education experience.
This new offering allows academic institutions to maintain ownership of messages and control of data storage, and is free of advertising. Additionally, the offering provides 24x7 email appliance and network management by an experienced professional hosting team that guarantees availability service level agreements.
"As opportunities for e-Learning continue to grow, Blackboard technology is providing new ways for faculty and students to teach and learn, as well as more effectively communicate and collaborate," said Barry Ariko, chief executive officer for Mirapoint. "We are pleased to work with Blackboard to provide a secure, scalable email solution that offers all members of the education community a great deal of flexibility without having to maintain or manage the system."
The Mirapoint-Blackboard hosted email solution offers single sign-on with the Blackboard Academic Suite(tm). The Blackboard Academic Suite is used by millions of people to access course materials and collaborate with peers and faculty online. Nearly 450 clients have their Blackboard e-Learning programs hosted by Blackboard.
"As institutions of higher education strive to keep pace with emerging technologies, they also face the challenge of doing more with less. Traditional messaging solutions used by most businesses are complex, often with high management costs and reliability issues," said Michael Chasen, Blackboard president and chief executive officer. "We think this new solution provides a tremendous value to our clients, enabling them to focus their attention on teaching and learning."
About Blackboard Inc.
Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) is a leading provider of enterprise software applications and related services to the education industry.
Founded in 1997, Blackboard solutions enable educational innovations everywhere by connecting people and technology. With two product suites, the Blackboard Academic Suite (tm) and the Blackboard Commerce Suite (tm), Blackboard applications are used by millions of people at academic institutions around the globe, including colleges, universities, K-12 schools and other education providers, as well as textbook publishers and student-focused merchants that serve education providers and their students. Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia.
Blackboard's UK customers include the universities of Durham, Cambridge, York, Dundee, Kingston, Derby, Bournemouth and Sheffield Hallam and amongst FE colleges using Blackboard solutions are City of Sunderland, Guildford, Brooklands and Newcastle colleges.
About Mirapoint
Founded in 1997, Mirapoint is the market leader in appliance-based solutions for secure message networks in enterprise, service provider, and education organizations, with more than 115 million mailboxes served and secured worldwide. Customers use Mirapoint appliances to build the messaging infrastructure that intelligently serves, secures and manages email. Mirapoint is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., with offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. For more information on Mirapoint, visit its Web site at www.mirapoint.com.
Blackboard
Educate. Innovate. Everywhere.(tm)
Media Contact, Euro PR Group:
Louise Stewart-Muir/ Ruchika Jain
020 8971 6400/ 6407
louise@europrgroup.com
rjain@europrgroup.com
