Blackboard / BBBB

About Blackboard

650 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Sixth Floor, Washington, D.C. 20001
www.blackboard.com | 202-463-4860 | Founded: 1997

Industry: Information Technology | Category: Public Companies

In its second full year as a publicly traded company, Blackboard's revenue increased 35 percent, but it reported a $10.7 million loss. Comparisons with 2005 earnings suffered because of a one-time tax benefit that skewed results for that year upward by $14.8 million.
The company had growth in product revenue, professional services revenue and its licensing business, which benefited from the acquisition of one of its key rivals, WebCT. That deal closed in February 2006.
In October, Blackboard announced a partnership with Google to use its technology to create deeper search capabilities for the academic community. Late in the year, Blackboard signed a 10-year lease at 650 Massachusetts Ave. NW in the District, where it plans to move at the end of 2007.
Blackboard stirred some concern last year after it won a patent that covers basic aspects of the technology colleges and universities use to run online courses. Colleges combine open-source and proprietary software to create the systems that run online courses. As a result, academics feared the company would go after them for patent infringement, hampering innovation. In February 2007, Blackboard pledged not to file lawsuits against academic users of open-source software.

2006 Financial Data

Revenues: $183,063,000 | Net Income: $-10,737,000
Assets: $307,299,000 | Earnings Per Share: $-0.39
Total employees: 765 | Local employees: 410