Rants, Raves, and Rhetoric v4

Step Back and Take a Deep Breath

Chris Hambly is asking for thoughts and reflections on Blackboard.

I deal with Blackboard nearly daily. We have one of the largest implementations of Vista. A choice to migrate to something else would affect around 180,000 people. So that choice will be very carefully maide. Of course, the longer we stay, the larger we grow and more difficult moving becomes. Unfortunately, that makes a careful choice more difficult to make.

I feel Blackboard is a publicly traded corporation. Therefore, many of its decisions are to get people with budgetary power to spend that money on Blackboard products. Yes, there are problems with Blackboard. From the looking I’ve done, people have problems with all of the equivalent products out there. Because the problems are more unfamiliar, its difficult to say whether changing would improve our situation.

The patent thing made me disappointed not angry. Less of the disappointment was directed at Blackboard, because given the state of affairs of its filing, I would have tried to get the patent as well. My most severe disappointment was to the United States Patent and Trademark Office for approving it. Perhaps this is because I’ve seen a history of the USPTO approving software patents which do not make sense. I am hopeful the USPTO can move to improve this.

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