Aragon Research introduces its first Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Learning, which examines 19 providers. The learning market is changing, and the shift to a social, mobile and user-empowered learning era is here. Learning is becoming a more personal, user-driven, social and mobile experience. Users want more. The enterprise learning market is beginning to flex and shift to meet these needs. The days of the LMS administrator-focused feature set are giving way to user demands for an easier and more engaging experience that brings all of the learning resources together. In today’s Facebook era, users want to connect with other subject-matter experts or take a class, no matter where they are or what device they have. The Aragon Research Globe™ for Enterprise Learning evaluates technology and service providers that allow an enterprise to manage and deliver all forms of learning. Social and mobile lead the pack in user demand, as does the need for easy access to a live class or a recorded one. The vendors with the best strategies understand this and have been doing makeovers of their offerings to support the social and mobile (SoMo) experience users want.

1. Workplace Service
Aragon
Research
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Topic: Knowledge
Issue: What technologies will be used to harness
knowhow?
____________________________________________________________________________________
Author: Jim Lundy
The Aragon Research Globe™ for Enterprise Learning, 2013:
The March to Social and Mobile
Summary: Aragon Research introduces its first Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise
Learning, which examines 19 providers. The learning market is changing, and the shift to a
social, mobile and user-empowered learning era is here.
Copyright © 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Aragon Research and the Aragon Research Globe are
trademarks of Aragon Research Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This publication may not be distributed in
any form without Aragon Research’s prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources
believed to be reliable. Nevertheless, Aragon Research provides this publication and the information contained in it "AS IS," without warranty of
any kind. To the maximum extent allowed by law, Aragon Research expressly disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or
adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information. This publication consists of
the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. The opinions
expressed here-in are subject to change without notice. Although Aragon Research may include a discussion of related legal issues, Aragon
Research does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Aragon Research is a private
company and its clients may include firms or financial institutions that have financial interests in entities covered by Aragon Research. Further
information about the objectivity of Aragon Research can be found at aragonresearch.com

2. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3
Mobile is More Than a Mobile App ............................................................................................. 3
Mobile Learning and Tablets ....................................................................................................... 3
Growth of Real-Time Cloud ......................................................................................................... 3
Learning versus Talent Suite ...................................................................................................... 3
Aragon Research Globe Overview .............................................................................................. 4
Dimensions of Analysis ............................................................................................................. 4
The Four Sectors of the Globe .................................................................................................. 5
Inclusion Criteria ........................................................................................................................ 5
Exclusions ................................................................................................................................. 6
The Aragon Research Globe™ for Enterprise Learning, 2013 ..................................................... 7
Leaders ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Contenders .............................................................................................................................. 12
Innovators ................................................................................................................................ 13
Specialists ............................................................................................................................... 16
Aragon Advisory ........................................................................................................................ 18
Bottom Line ............................................................................................................................... 18
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 2

3. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Introduction
Learning is becoming a more personal, user-driven, social and mobile experience. Users want more.
The enterprise learning market is beginning to flex and shift to meet these needs. The days of the
LMS administrator-focused feature set are giving way to user demands for an easier and more
engaging experience that brings all of the learning resources together. In today’s Facebook era, users
want to connect with other subject-matter experts or take a class, no matter where they are or what
device they have.
The Aragon Research Globe™ for Enterprise Learning evaluates technology and service providers that
allow an enterprise to manage and deliver all forms of learning. Social and mobile lead the pack in
user demand, as does the need for easy access to a live class or a recorded one. The vendors with
the best strategies understand this and have been doing makeovers of their offerings to support the
social and mobile (SoMo) experience users want.
Mobile is More Than a Mobile App
Many learning providers and nearly all social HCM providers offer mobile apps, but what
matters is what you can do with them. We were surprised at the wide differences in mobile
capabilities between providers. In fact, there are now ways to see differences between
providers. Some of it involves the functionality, while other factors involve how often the mobile
app is updated. Quarterly updates are becoming the norm. Even in 2013 there are still a few
vendors who are still in the process of launching a mobile app. For learning, it is as much about
taking a course as it is reading a book.
Mobile Learning and Tablets
Tablets are the new way of learning, not only for delivering learning courses, but also delivering live
instruction as a key component. This is one reason enterprises want more user-centric solutions that
are easy to use and make content easy to access on any device. Taking a live or recorded class via
tablet shouldn’t be a third-party integration; it should be a normal user experience. More advanced
learning solutions enable this (see Research Note 2013-04: Learning With Tablets: Five Reasons the
Tablet is the Ultimate Learning Device).
Growth of the Real-time Cloud
The real-time cloud is becoming an important deployment option for enterprises that need to
leverage their existing investment in areas such as video conferencing, but can’t expand it
significantly because building out the infrastructure would cost too much. Real-time cloud offers
enterprises the flexibility to blend their UC, video and web conferencing environments together. In
learning, the focus is on the Real-time Cloud Virtual Classroom, in which students can take a live
virtual class or listen to a class recording.
Learning versus Talent Suite
Learning is still a unique ecosystem, and over the years some talent suite providers did better than
others in delivering both a compelling learning solution and a full talent suite. Today, it is clear that
many HR and learning buyers may purchase two or more suite components from one provider. For
learning, the challenge is still to give users great learning that helps them perform better. Regardless
of the provider, enterprises need to evaluate learning solutions on how well they do this, and to
realize that learning content is a big part of the overall equation.
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 3

4. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Aragon Research Globe Overview
The Aragon Research Globe graphically represents our analysis of a specific market and its
component vendors. We do a rigorous analysis of each vendor, using three dimensions that
enable comparative evaluation of the participants in a given market.
The Aragon Research Globe looks beyond size and market share, which often dominate this
type of analysis, and instead uses those as comparative factors in evaluating providers’
product-oriented capabilities. Positioning in the Aragon Research Globe will reflect how
complete a provider’s future strategy is, relative to their performance in fulfilling that strategy in
the market.
A further differentiating factor is the global market reach of each vendor. This allows all vendors
with similar strategy and performance to be compared regardless of their size and market
share. It will improve recognition of providers with a comprehensive strategy and strong
performance but limited or targeted global penetration, which will be compared more directly
to others with similar perspectives.
Dimensions of Analysis
The following parameters are tracked in this analysis:
Strategy reflects the degree to which a vendor has the market understanding and strategic
intent that are at the forefront of market direction. That includes providing the capabilities that
customers want in the current offering and recognizing where the market is headed. The strategy
evaluation includes:
•
Learning Product
•
Product strategy
•
Market understanding and how well product roadmaps reflect that understanding
•
Marketing
•
Management team, including time in the job and understanding of the market
Performance represents a vendor’s effectiveness in executing its defined strategy. This includes
selling and supporting the defined product offering or service. The performance evaluation
includes:
•
Awareness: Market awareness of the firm and its product.
•
Customer experience: Feedback on the product, installs, upgrades and overall satisfaction.
•
Viability: Financial viability of the provider as measured by financial statements.
•
Pricing and Packaging: Is the offering priced and packaged competitively?
•
Product: The mix of features tied to the frequency and quality of releases and updates.
•
R&D: Investment in research and development as evidenced by overall architecture.
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 4

5. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Reach is a measure of the global capability that a vendor can deliver. Reach can have one of
three values: national, international or global. Being able to offer products and services in one
of the following three regions is the third dimension of the Globe analysis:
•
Americas (North America and Latin America)
•
EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa)
•
APAC (Asia Pacific: including but not limited to Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea,
Russia, Singapore, etc.)
The market reach evaluation includes:
•
Sales and support offices worldwide
•
Time zone and location of support centers
•
Support for languages
•
References in respective hemispheres
•
Data center locations
The Four Sectors of the Globe
The Aragon Research Globe is segmented into four sectors, representing high and low on both the
strategy and performance dimensions. When the analysis is complete, each vendor will be in one
of four groups: leaders, contenders, innovators or specialists. We define these as follows:
•
Leaders have comprehensive strategies that align with industry direction and market demand,
and effectively perform against those strategies.
•
Contenders have strong performance, but more limited or less complete strategies. Their
performance positions them well to challenge for leadership by expanding their strategic focus.
•
Innovators have strong strategic understanding and objectives, but have yet to perform
effectively across all elements of that strategy.
•
Specialists fulfill their strategy well, but have a narrower or more targeted emphasis with
regard to overall industry and user expectations. Specialists may excel in a certain market or
vertical application.
Inclusion Criteria
The Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Learning, 2013 will help clients differentiate the
many vendors who offer tools to let enterprises manage and deliver all forms of learning.
The inclusion criteria for this Aragon Research Globe are:
•
A minimum of $4 million in primary revenue for learning products or services (LMS, LCMS,
Classroom, Authoring) or a minimum of $15 million in revenue in a related market (Talent
Management, Collaboration or Learning Content Courseware).
•
Shipping product; must be announced and available.
•
Customer references: Vendor must provide customer references in each region where the
vendor does business.
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 5

6. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Exclusions
The following vendors were excluded from this Aragon Research Globe:
•
Drumtalk: Drumtalk is a new knowledge-sharing solution that just launched this year. We see
promise from them in social learning, and given their horizontal focus, we will evaluate them in
our Aragon Research Globe for Enterprise Social Networking.
•
Workday: Workday is one of the fastest-growing cloud providers of human capital management
and financial management solutions. They partner with multiple vendors for learning solutions
and as such do not qualify for inclusion in this Globe.
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 6

7. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
The Aragon Research Globe™ for Enterprise Learning, 2013:
The March to Social and Mobile
(As of September 30, 2013)
Figure 1: The Aragon Research Globe™ for Enterprise Learning, 2013: The March to Social and Mobile
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 7

8. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Leaders
Cornerstone OnDemand
Cornerstone OnDemand (CSOD) was one of the pioneers in leading the shift to the cloud and has
capitalized on that by offering a full talent suite, and markets them either individually or as bundled
modules. CSOD has been growing fast, in part due to strong marketing and its focus on the Cloud
Talent Suite. While CSOD has had community capabilities since 2008 that are used by 25% of their
client base, it has been late in offering next-generation mobile, social and virtual classroom
capabilities.
CSOD did show off its new mobile and social capabilities at its annual customer event in June
2013. While its product architecture is based on the Microsoft .Net framework, scalability has not
been an issue in some of the big deals it has won. The main thing we hear from customers is that
CSOD has proven itself as a firm that is easy to do business with.
Strengths
• Complete end-to-end talent suite
• Ease of doing business with CSOD
Challenges
• Multiple Cloud products - SMB offering is
different than the mainline product
IBM Kenexa
IBM made a strategic decision to get back into the learning and social HCM markets by buying
Kenexa in 2012, which had also recently purchased Outstart. Outstart has been one of the
strongest players in learning content management, and since becoming part of IBM Kenexa it
has continually enhanced its overall product portfolio. Today it offers all the major components of
learning with particular strengths in content and mobile delivery of content.
Besides its large LCMS installed base, IBM Kenexa has enhanced its mobile offering with IBM
Kenexa Hot Lava Mobile content authoring and delivery. IBM Kenexa has also consistently
updated its mobile apps quarterly, something more HCM vendors need to emulate. It has also
enhanced its social capabilities and enhanced its LMS capabilities with a new revamped offering.
IBM Kenexa has also made it easy to take content mobile with its Hot Lava app.
Strengths
• LCMS
• Social
• Mobile app and frequency of mobile app
updates
Challenges
• Known more for LCMS than LMS
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 8

9. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Mzinga
Mzinga was an early pioneer in cloud-based e-learning, and it also jumped on social learning earlier
than any other vendor. Mzinga has rebranded its product portfolio around the OmniSocial brand. It
has also updated its cloud-based OmniSocial Learning platform, and that, along with a total focus on
customer satisfaction, has enabled Mzinga to compete for and win a number of significant deals.
Mzinga also offers OmniSocial Content, an award-winning content authoring and best-inclass software simulation solution to enable content authors to produce engaging and interactive
e-learning content. Additionally, Mzinga provides custom content development services for
enterprises looking to augment or outsource their content development needs. Mzinga also
bundles an industry-leading virtual classroom solution to broaden the instructor’s classroom toolset
and deepen the students’ level of collaboration and engagement in virtual classroom courses.
Strengths
Challenges
• Social learning functionality
• Content authoring and software simulation
tools and services
• Virtual classroom capabilities
• E-commerce capabilities for internal and
extended enterprises
• Market awareness
NetDimensions
NetDimensions is a publicly traded global learning and talent management firm that is focused on
high-consequence industries. It is based in Hong Kong, with offices in the US, UK, Germany,
China, Australia, and the Philippines. With a global footprint and the ability to deal with both
compliance (21CFR11) and training for external users (extended enterprise), NetDimensions is
increasingly competing for large global learning and talent deals. NetDimensions offers social
learning directly, but it also integrates with leading social platforms via an API interface. Supported
platforms include Atlassian Confluence and WordPress/BuddyPress.
In 2012 NetDimensions rolled out a mobile app for tablets, the NetDimensions Talent Slate,
which allows for the use of learning in both an online and offline manner. Its global focus,
combined with strong deployments in Europe and Asia, makes NetDimensions a good choice
for firms that operate across the globe.
Strengths
• LMS
• Analytics
• Compliance
Challenges
• Market awareness
• Social learning
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 9

10. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Oracle
Oracle Learn Cloud delivers a tailored user experience that can be designed to create any look and
feel desired through a highly editable UI. Many companies want to make sure that they market the
brand and culture of the company in all aspects of employee, channel, or customer engagement. The
UI HTML can be tailored to deliver the user experience desired to increase user adoption and
engagement with an application.
Oracle Learn Cloud is integrated with the Oracle HCM Cloud Suite, Oracle Taleo Recruiting Cloud
Service, Oracle Taleo Onboarding Cloud Service, and Oracle Taleo Performance Management Cloud
Service. Mobile is a major strong suit, as is the pending integration with Oracle Social Network, which
has been fully deployed at Oracle for the last two years. The breadth and depth of the Oracle Learn
Cloud technology stack combined with the existing Oracle Learning installed base positions Oracle
well going forward.
Strengths
• Cloud focus for learning
• Mobile capabilities
• Overall strength of HCM suite
Challenges
• Awareness of learning offering
Saba
Saba, which just named Shawn Farshchi as its permanent CEO, has been a pioneer in learning
and has one of the largest installed bases of learning customers. It was early in collaboration,
and recently did a complete update of its Saba Cloud to be fully social with embedded virtual
classroom capabilities. With full integration of its virtual classroom, Saba is ready for a new
wave of training delivery that is immersive, so students can take a live class or just click on a
recording. Saba can also address compliance (21CFR11) requirements.
Saba also has some of the most complete testing and assessment capabilities on the market,
which means that an enterprise can skip the step of buying a testing or assessment platform.
Saba has jumped into the smarter systems arena by adding more predictive and machine
learning capabilities to their platform. This is a next-generation capability and something other
vendors will want to emulate.
Strengths
• Social and mobile learning
• Virtual classroom
• Built-in e-commerce
Challenges
• Services execution
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 10

11. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
SuccessFactors
SuccessFactors, which is part of SAP, offers one of the leading learning platforms on the
market. Formerly known as Plateau, SuccessFactors Learning is part of the SAP Cloud
platform, one of the most complete in the industry. Some of the world’s largest companies use
SuccessFactors Learning, and given the large and growing SAP base, we expect to see more
firms interested in making that transition.
SAP Jam, which integrates with the Learning module, has had a number of significant updates
that make social learning a breeze. Like Saba, SuccessFactors has a large on-premise installed
base. Given that SAP has both on-premise and cloud offerings, this is the best of both worlds
for enterprises that may still want to go with an on-premise deployment.
Strengths
• Platform scalability
• Learning functionality
Challenges
• Focus on learning compared to the HCM suite
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 11

12. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Contenders
Skillsoft
Skillsoft has been in the learning and learning content markets for 24 years, and is a dominant
supplier of off-the-shelf learning content. They have a large installed base of both content and
Skillport customers, and are in the process of a makeover of their Skillport offering, to make it even
more contextual and relevant to the learner.
Skillsoft has stayed focused on the cloud, and this has made upgrades to its platform easier. Since
Skillsoft also offers a very large catalog of content, enterprises may be attracted to its offering since
it can represent a one-stop shop.
Strengths
• Ease of use
• Complete offering of learning and content
Challenges
• Integration of social learning
• “Good enough” LMS features
SumTotal Systems
Sumtotal Systems is a long-time provider of learning solutions, and given the number of acquisitions
it has made, it now offers a maintenance service for the myriad of products it has to support.
SumTotal also competes in learning authoring with its ToolBook 11.5 authoring platform.
SumTotal has offered an LMS social module, which is based on Microsoft SharePoint, for a few
years. This module allows organizations to seamlessly integrate the formal and informal knowledge
transfer that occurs inside and outside their organization. It includes enablement of blogs,
discussions, documents, etc. SumTotal has not yet indicated if it will support Yammer, which is
now Microsoft’s de facto social network, instead of the social functionality in SharePoint (see
Aragon Research Note 2013-21, Yammer Becomes The Primary Social Network For Microsoft).
Strengths
• Large installed base
• Authoring tools
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Challenges
• Innovation of learning platform
• Supporting a large legacy base of products
• Support for Yammer integration with
SharePoint
Page 12

13. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Innovators
Bloomfire
Bloomfire has jumped into the learning market as a pure-play social learning provider that focuses
on people learning from others via its social network.
While Bloomfire doesn’t offer formal class tracking, it does offer the ability to onboard employees
quickly by ensuring that they get the right information at the right time. This focus on social is a
trend we are seeing in the marketplace. Business managers and enterprises that need to share
information quickly and efficiently are using solutions like Bloomfire to get the job done.
Strengths
• Social learning
Challenges
• LMS Lite functionality may not be enough
for some enterprises
• Ease of use
• Fast onboarding of new associates
• Market awareness
Expertus
Expertus has more than a decade of experience in the LMS implementation and support
business. It built ExpertusONE leveraging that strength, and in the last four years it has grown
into a full LMS product and services firm that is scaling up. It has won a number of major
accounts, due in part to the ease of use of ExpertusONE, which is a profile-driven and
heuristically built platform that blends collaborative and social features seamlessly into formal
learning.
Expertus just rolled out an integrated virtual classroom offering called ExpertusONE Meetings
that will give it a leg up on others who have to partner for this functionality. ExpertusONE also
has a solid mobile experience, with native apps for all Apple iOS and Android devices. In
addition, it has offline synchronization and some innovative features like “presence sensing,”
which detects that a learner is in a classroom and automatically marks them present.
Strengths
•
•
•
•
•
Full learning suite
Mobile apps
LMS implementation and support experience
Published library of REST APIs
Virtual classroom
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Challenges
• Market awareness
• Growth outside U.S.
Page 13

14. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Meridian Knowledge Solutions
Meridian Knowledge Solutions is an established learning management system provider with a
diverse customer base. It provides both enterprise commercial and public sector solutions.
Meridian’s core strength revolves around its focus on learning technology with flexible deployment
options, either through a perpetual model or a cloud-based offering. Its primary market is U.S.
Federal, state and local governments. That said, we are seeing them more in commercial deals, but
mainly in the United States.
Meridian has always excelled in its ability to deliver content to any device via its content player
technology. It has also expanded its capabilities by offering e-commerce storefronts, positioning it
well for member-based associations that want to drive revenue by selling training content.
Strengths
• Government focus
• Cloud delivery capabilities
Challenges
• Lack of a mobile app
Peoplefluent
Peoplefluent is in the process of an innovative integration with a new unifying user-experience
application layer called the Mirror. The new Mirror capabilities include its Learning offering, which is
a component in its overall social HCM and talent suite. Peoplefluent Learning has all of the
components to deliver enterprise class training, including authoring for content creation and ecommerce for extended enterprise.
Peoplefluent Mirror leverages its social capabilities and its video capabilities via recent acquisitions
of both social software (SocialText) and video content management (KZO), respectively. This shift
allows them to do more in the growing areas of social and video based learning including some
compelling use cases such as leadership development. The combination of formal instruction,
social interactions, mentoring and video content delivery make the new Peoplefluent learning
solution one to watch.
Strengths
• Updated product offering
• Strength of overall HCM suite
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Challenges
• Awareness in learning market
Page 14

15. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Silkroad
Silkroad offers an easy-to-use social learning platform called GreenLight, which is easy and
intuitive to use. It is fully integrated with Silkroad Point, its social collaboration capabilities. With a
tile-like interface similar to Windows 8’s launch screen, Silkroad is leading the charge into the
user-driven social learning landscape.
Silkroad offers built-in LCMS functionality along with the option for e-commerce. The social
functionality can also be customized, making it ideal for customer learning deployments. Silkroad
is more known in the SMB market, but based on what we have seen, their product should be
usable in all sizes of enterprises.
Strengths
• Social learning functionality
• E-commerce support for extended enterprise
• Common look and feel across products
Challenges
• Market awareness
Technomedia
Technomedia is a Canadian talent management provider that has probably focused more on the
Quebec and French markets than anywhere else. Its learning platform is solid and comprehensive.
We found it easy to use. The social capabilities were more discussion-forum based, but they
offered strong configuration capabilities.
With a new leadership team Technomedia is looking to grow into additional markets, including the
U.S. and western Europe. Its solid base of existing customers should prepare it well for additional
growth.
Strengths
• LMS offering
• Reporting
• Multinational deployments
Challenges
• Market awareness
• Social functionality
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 15

16. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Specialists
Blackboard
Blackboard is known for its strength in the higher education market, where it has grown to become
the dominant provider. In the corporate space, Blackboard is not as well known but it is competing
more and it has some compelling customer use cases.
Blackboard offers full LMS and social capabilities that are seamlessly integrated and easy to use.
Blackboard also offers mobile and collaboration capabilities. The web conferencing and virtual
classroom capabilities are solid but we have heard some complaints from users about the
consistency of the delivery.
Strengths
• Higher education market
• Collaboration
• New user experience
Challenges
• Focus on the corporate market
Hughes
Hughes is known more in the communications space, but with its video technologies and its
Hughes Learning Portal, it does compete for learning deals in markets it serves. The Hughes
Learning Portal is attractively priced, and it provides good enough LMS Lite functionality. Hughes
also offers a corporate DVR solution, which gives distributed organizations the ability to deliver live
video as well as video on demand to employees.
Another offering from Hughes that we found unique is its break-room TV solution, which can be
used in many work environments for learning delivery, in addition to corporate communications.
Strengths
• Hughes brand
• Break room TV solution
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Challenges
• Lack of awareness in corporate learning
Page 16

17. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Lumesse
Lumesse offers a full talent suite portfolio on a global basis. Its Learning Gateway offering is LMS
Lite capability, but a number of firms have used it for years with solid results.
Lumesse offers content authoring capabilities via its Course Builder product that can allow for
courses to be deployed in multiple languages. Lumesse also offers content development services,
so it is more of a one-stop shop for firms that need content and learning services together.
Strengths
• Overall talent suite
• Ease of content creation
Challenges
• LMS functionality
• Awareness in learning markets
Mindflash
Mindflash, based in Palo Alto, CA focuses on just-in-time learning course authoring that allows
people to quickly create a course and deliver it to users. With a focus on content, we would classify it
as an LMS Lite provider in its Advanced and Pro versions, making them a good solution for business
units that need to get training out fast.
Mindflash integrates with Yammer for its social capabilities, and going forward, Mindflash may
want to add more functionality to its own offering. Mindflash has been growing and adding new
customers, in part due to its ease of course creation and delivery.
Strengths
• Ease of content creation
• Ease of purchasing (online buy)
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Challenges
• Base version may not be suitable for learning
delivery and tracking
• Needs Yammer integration for social
functionality
Page 17

18. Workplace Service
RESEARCH NOTE
Number: 2013-32
September 30, 2013
Aragon Advisory
•
Enterprises need to do careful due diligence when evaluating learning providers.
•
The user experience of a learning solution is just as important as the back-end feature set.
Keep this in mind when evaluating providers.
•
Social and mobile will continue to become more critical feature sets.
Bottom Line
The learning market is shifting and enterprises are looking for complete solutions that make it
easier to delivery high quality learning to their users, partners and customers. Enterprises need
to ensure that learning can be easy and fun for users by evaluating providers that can deliver
on that value proposition.
© 2013 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Page 18