Online learning company, due to be acquired by Pearson in October, 2007, for $477 million. Law Firm Investigates Pearson-eCollege.com deal for securities fraud. May 15, 2007 - Credit Suisse cut ECLG to neutral from outperform.

UK based book publisher, acquiring eCollege.com. PSO also owns The Financial Times, which is why Murdoch might be interested in it. It also owns famous Old Media imprints such as Penguin Books. Pearson plc, through its subsidiaries, operates as an education and information company. It publishes textbooks for the education, business information, and consumer publishing markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally. The company provides testing and software services for primary and secondary schools; offers assessment, reporting, and business solutions; and publishes textbooks and related course materials for colleges and universities, as well as texts, reference, and interactive products for industry professionals. It also publishes the works of various authors in fiction, nonfiction, and reference titles, as well as offers public information systems for government departments. In addition, the company publishes the Financial Times, other business newspapers, magazines, and specialist information; and provides financial market data, analytics, and related services to financial institutions, active traders, and individual investors. Pearson was founded in 1844 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

Competitor to ECLG. Blackboard, Inc. provides enterprise software applications and related services to the education industry in the United States. Its Blackboard Learning System allows education providers to support an online teaching and learning environment; and the Blackboard Community System includes functionality for student organizations, faculty and staff, departmental collaboration, information distribution, and single sign-on access to existing administrative systems. The company�s Blackboard Content System provides enterprise content management capabilities; and supports teaching, learning, research, archival, extracurricular, and departmental activities. Its Blackboard Outcomes System enables the planning and measuring of student, teaching, and institutional outcomes, as well as provides a set of instruments for student and program assessment; and the Blackboard Portfolio System is a personal portfolio application that enables users to collect and organize their academic work. The company�s Blackboard Transaction System is an enterprise software application to establish an integrated student debit account program for charging incidental expenses, such as meals and academic materials using the campus ID card. Its Blackboard One system enables students and faculty to use their university ID cards as a form of payment off-campus. The company also serves as an application service provider offering hosting services to outsource the management of the hardware, bandwidth, and servers. In addition, it offers project management, integration of its applications with existing campus systems, user interface customization, installation and configuration, course and content migration, custom application development, training, and consulting services. The company�s customers include colleges, universities, schools, other education providers, textbook publishers, and student-focused merchants. Blackboard was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Washington, District of Columbia.

Acquisition target of Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps if Murdoch doesn't buy DJ he'll buy PSO.

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For-profit primarily online college that represents typical ECLG customer. Provides higher education to working adults through its subsidiaries, including The University of Phoenix and the Institute for Professional Development, and offers programs and services at 90 campuses and 154 learning centers in 39 states, Puerto Rico, Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.