Blackboard and WebCT merge
Acidangl writes "Blackboard and WebCT, leading providers of enterprise software and services to the education industry have announced plans to merge." From the article: "Under terms of the agreement, Blackboard will acquire WebCT in a cash transaction for $180 million, which values the offer at approximately $154 million, net of WebCT's August 31, 2005 cash balance of $26 million. The ultimate value of the offer will vary depending on WebCT's cash balance at closing."
Yup I'm privy to some of those horror stories, even though I'm just a backup sysadmin for Blackboard. No wonder universities got together for an alternate. It's not ready for primetime but if Bb doesn't get its act together I wouldn't be surprised to see Sakai gain momentum.
Moodle
The school I'm at made the shift and hasn't looked back(well, aside from the technophobe teachers who grumble about learning something new a few years after they started to grasp the old system).
To clarify: the vulnerability that the Georgia Tech student found was in the Blackboard Commerce Suite, not the Academic Suite.
The Commerce Suite was a product line purchased from AT&T several years ago, and is mostly seperate from the Academic Suite. This merger mostly affects the Academic Suite.