It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

In Menlo Park, an overflow audience listened to and discussed up-to-the-minute presentations on what's happening in the eLearning marketplace. Unfortunately, we got our wires crossed and treated a record number of remote participants to an hour or more of silence; that in itself makes a statement about the real state of eLearning today.

We began with news from recent conferences. Rob Harris found buyers attending Conference Board events in New York and San Diego much more sophisticated than ever before. I noted an upbeat, can-do attitude at Training Directors Forum but found ASTD somewhat glum -- few new offerings, some former major vendors missing in action, and reduced attendance.

Trace Urdan described a marketplace where vendors are out of sync with their users. Vendors are selling to line managers, but training managers are making more decisions these days. Buyers are often more savvy than the vendor sales people who call on them. Vendors no longer drive sales; buyers buy only what is critical in their businesses and do so on their own schedules. Buyers are looking for a single source of IT and soft-skills content, and increasingly they are finding it.

Vendor viability is an issue for buyers and will drive consolidation. Major buyers want to deal with stable players. A SmartForce may seem large in the eLearning world, but it's a drop in the bucket for a GM, which would prefer to deal with a PeopleSoft, SAP, or IBM.

Buyers also want learning management integrated with their ERP/CRM systems, a great opening for PeopleSoft, SAP, and Siebel. Buyers don't expect seamless, comprehensive solutons. An LMS-ERP combo that's 75% there is preferable to an LMS residing in a silo.

Tom Barron pointed out that venture capital is disproportionately scarce in the eLearning sector but some players have scored major refinancing nonetheless, among them KnowledgeNet, Powered, Outstart, Hyperware, Element K, Interwise, Pathlore, and Vuepoint. Some "outsiders" have entered the eLearning space, notably PeopleSoft and SAP which both announced new LMS in April, and streaming media platforms from Polycom, Virage, and Yahoo!

Tom sees several new marketing strategies at work. Vendors are forming alliances to lend credibility to claims of interoperability. They are focusing on hot business units such as sales and customer service. Verticals are becoming attractive targets, particularly financial services and regulated industries such as pharma, petrochemicals, and health. The illusive small business market is once again in the sites of ASP-based eLearning.

Eilif Trondsen described the international situation and the results of our member survey. In Europe, the UK is the largest and most mature market. The Nordic countries are sophisticated but small. Some German vendors have hit some bumps in the road.

Australia has seen some eLearning growth in the past and that will likely continue. Singapore is awash in government funding. Korea is showing strong interest. (Kristian Folkman mentioned that Koreans outnumbered Canadians at ASTD this year.) eLearning in Japan is a mixed bag; it's not all chrysanthemums.

Eilif questioned why there are so few meaningful case studies of eLearning available. Glenn Oclassen said his clients considered their results proprietary. David Holcolmb said that cases of failures would be particularly valuable (but even harder to obtain.) I said that as an author of numerous cases, I've seen many vendors who consider a case a mere writing assignment; a thorough case analysis can be a major undertaking, in the $10,000 - $20,000 range.

j.c.

Results of survey of eLearning Forum. We surveyed the membership of eLearning Forum about eLearning trends evident last year and expected next year, obstacles to overcome, pluses and minuses, and the importance of government participation. This is the complete set of responses. Eilif summarizes the information in a later session.

There's more on the way. We expect to have videotaped excerpts from the presentations available soon. Also, we've asked members to contribute their thoughts and publications on the state of the eLearning Art. I'll go first:

Beyond eLearning, Jay Cross, Internet Time Group, Overview