Blackboard Inc. is an educational technology company with corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C.. It is known for its Blackboard Learn learning management system. The company's CEO is Jay Bhatt, who has led Blackboard since October 2012. The firm provides education, mobile, communication, and commerce software and related services to clients including education providers, corporations and government organizations. The software consists of seven platforms called Learn, Transact, Engage, Connect, Mobile, Collaborate and Analytics that are offered as bundled software. The firm was founded by Michael Chasen, Matthew Pittinsky, Stephen Gilfus and Daniel Cane in 1997, and became a public company in 2004. It operated publicly until it was purchased by Providence Equity Partners in 2011. As of January 2014
Citrix Systems, Inc. is an American multinational software company founded in 1989 that provides server, application and desktop virtualization, networking, software-as-a-service, and cloud computing technologies. The company began by developing remote access products for Microsoft operating systems. It licensed source code from Microsoft and has been in partnership with the company throughout its history. Citrix came to prominence in the 1990s as a leader in thin client technology. Through several acquisitions in the mid-2000s, the company expanded into server and desktop virtualization, as well as cloud and Infrastructure as a Service.