Comments on: Comments, notes and a… ah… correction

By: admin

admin — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 10:44:36 +0000

Koschei,
I’m not sure that there is any proof that blackboard has ‘pissed off its core customers’. To my knowledge, few people in the edublog community are actually paying blackboard anything. Many administrators are probably blissfully unaware of this situation or, if they’ve recently chosen blackboard, are probably feeling like they made the safe choice. Until i see a few ‘this university left blackboard ’cause they’re pissed off’ i will remain unconvinced. And most people don’t do business that way.

Hey Tom,
Now… I removed your name from that post because i didn’t want to single you out! 🙂 You have to admit Tom, your post was a little argumentative. As the comments on your blog attest, an inference was read into your post that you were jaded BECAUSE you have been aware of it longer. It’s a weakness of text, it’s essentially transmission based, no matter how much we interact after the fact.

By: Tom Hoffman

Tom Hoffman — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 00:53:13 +0000

Jeez, I never thought I’d get so much heat, indirect as it may be, for pointing out that I can’t really rouse myself to care about a rather obviously important issue. I guess it depends on if being “jaded” is a compliment or insult.

By: Koschei

Koschei — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:52:45 +0000

A publicly traded corporation must, by its structure, take advantage of every legal opportunity.

As I understand it, a publicly traded corporation has a duty to maximize shareholder value. If taking advantage of an legal opportunity damages the corporation’s reputation and causes it to lose business, that action could represent a management failure.

Note that (some) corporations spend lots of money on charities and environment-oriented programs that, in their face, remove money from the bottom line, but foster the image of that company as a good corporate citizen.

A good example is Apple’s recent announcement of a recycling program for old computers. That’s going to cost Apple lots of money in the short term, but (Apple hopes) will increase profit in the long term by improving Apple’s reputation.

Blackboard has managed to piss off a sizeable proportion of its core customers. That can’t be good for business.