Espresso acquires Netmedia to create a new force in the education market
27 February 2006
Espresso Education announced today that it will be acquiring Netmedia Education. Both companies are leaders in their respective fields: Espresso, with its pioneering, media-rich digital teaching materials, and Netmedia, with its richly functional web-based educational platform services. The enlarged Espresso company will offer customers a unique end-to-end educational solution: curriculum content, managed content delivery and a virtual learning environment.
David Wimpress, Netmedia’s CEO, will continue in his role, and will join the Board of Espresso. The respected Netmedia name, its brand and products will continue as before.
The acquisition will further enhance Espresso’s position in the UK education sector where it already has 6,500 schools subscribing to its service, a 33% market penetration in English primary schools.
Netmedia Education, established in 1995, markets a full suite of ‘Personal Learning Environment’ products branded MyGrid4Learning. The company’s approach to the market is to create open systems that embrace the best-in-class materials from third party content providers. Netmedia’s virtual learning environment is considered to be the most mature product available in the market. In total, the company serves the needs of 6,000 schools and has a strong synergy with Espresso’s customers, Broadband Consortia and LA partnerships.
Netmedia joins the Espresso for Primary service, Espresso for Secondary service and Education Media Delivery (EMD), Espresso’s managed content delivery company launched at NAACE 2004. Together, they form a powerful solution that no other company in the U.K. can offer to schools and LAs. One of the first products to be created by bringing together the talents of Espresso and Netmedia will be Open Espresso, a KS3 video and asset library accessed via the Learning Environment anytime, anywhere.
The enlarged Espresso Company is uniquely placed to enable schools to meet the Government’s personalised learning agenda and strategy for 2008. The Government’s strategy paper ‘Harnessing Technology’ requires that, by 2008, teachers can access rich, subject-related, interactive content, a personal learning space for all learners and an e-portfolio to capture a record of lifelong learning achievement. Netmedia currently focuses on VLE/MLE interoperability, authentication/access standards via Shibboleth, content integration, ePortfolios, and meeting the needs of the Diploma in Digital Applications (DiDA). All these issues anticipate the educational and technical development that clients will demand. Netmedia’s Learning Platform meets the Government’s objectives for 2008 – today.
Espresso and Netmedia together will provide schools with an end-to-end solution by creating and delivering curriculum-based content to a personalised learning portal, including single sign on, systems interoperatability, and single points of service delivery and support.
Lewis Bronze, Chief Executive of Espresso Education comments: “Our expanded company is focused on providing even better services to schools, harnessing technology investments, and ensuring great delivery by trusted and respected suppliers, at excellent value. We welcome our new colleagues from Netmedia and we are excited about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead”.
David Wimpress, Chief Executive of Netmedia Education said: “I am delighted that the strong collaborative culture and mutual respect that Netmedia and Espresso have built up over a number of years has culminated in this exciting development. Both teams share similar values such as a commitment to close customer relationships and a willingness to push technical boundaries to enhance the learning experience.”
The financial details of the acquisition will remain confidential.Media Contacts
To interview Lewis Bronze or David Wimpress or for further information related to this release, please contact Sophy Gasson on Tel: 0208 237 1200 Email: sgasson@espresso.co.uk
Espresso Broadband Limited, whose lead investors include ITN (Independent Television News Limited) and Beringea Limited, is led by Richard McGrath, Managing Director. It now includes the following subsidiaries:
Netmedia Education
Netmedia Education is the market leader in the development of web-based learning environments, data driven education web-sites & portals, education applications and localised content development.
Netmedia delivers these services to Education Authorities (LAs), Regional Broadband Consortia (RBCs) and schools across the UK.
The full suite of Netmedia ‘Learning Environment’ products called MyGrid4Learning (MG4L), includes: MyPortal, customisable school and community education portals for LAs to operate and maintain; MyDesktop, a Virtual Learning Environment, providing a unique, XML-powered and metadata supported, personal desktop for every student and teacher at every school; and others including: MyClasses and MyPortfolio.
Education Media Delivery (EMD)
EMD is a new commercial company established to manage and facilitate the delivery of content from multiple suppliers (one such supplier being Espresso Education) so that all such content can be delivered reliably together on the same caching server platform.
EMD offers interoperability certification for software companies looking to run on any cache; and authenticated managed delivery of software and curriculum content to the caches running on a school or LA network.
Espresso Education
With over 6,500 subscribing schools using its resources, Espresso Education is the leading provider of educational broadband content in the UK and the proud winner of two 2004 BETT Awards: Best Online Learning Resource and Best Educational Software and 2005 ERA Award for Educational Supplier of the Year.
Espresso is a constantly updating comprehensive digital library of high quality, video-rich teaching resources and interactive student activities that support teachers, motivates pupils and raises standards in primary and secondary classrooms.
Espresso combines television features, online interactive news articles, instructional video and audio clips, multi-media games and websites, all categorised into modules that directly support QCA and National Curriculum requirements. The service automatically updates on a weekly basis, giving teachers and pupils access to fresh, relevant resources that draw on topical events.
