The Internet is dramatically reshaping the way in which training and education is delivered. The education and training markets in general, and the online segment in particular, are growing rapidly. The rapid increase of Internet usage, the shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge-based economy, competitive pressures to accelerate corporate learning and advances in bandwidth and compression technologies are all working to drive the demand for online e-Learning. E-Learning software provides a missing link in enterprise-wide corporate knowledge management systems.

IDC forecasts that corporate spending on e-Learning infrastructure software in 2000 to be $356 million, the majority to be spent on learning platforms. This market segment is expected to more than triple to over $1.1 billion by 2003. Merrill Lynch projects the whole e-Learning space will be worth $25.3 billion in 2003. IDC also projects the corporate training segment of the online learning market will reach $11.4 billion by 2003, a 5-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 83%. An equal increase will take place in online adult continuing education. IDC projects this segment of the education market to grow from $550M in 1998 to $9.3B in 2003, a 76% CAGR. The Education market in whole was the second largest component (7%) of the US GNP in 1999.

For e-Learning to become mainstream, and for those projections to prove true, the midsize enterprise - in both corporations and education institutions - must be able to adopt it e-Learning easily and affordably. Midmarket enterprises are defined as companies or organizations with revenues between $5 million and $500 million and between 100 and 15,000 employees. This includes corporations, higher education institutions, franchise systems and associations. More than 275,000 midsize businesses worldwide. Penetration throughout these companies represents the maturing of the e-Learning market.

A market-enabling application is needed that is an off-the-shelf, easily installable, configurable, highly scalable and fully integrated solution that will enable e-Learning to become a viable, cost-effective and integral part of the midsize enterprise.

A successful enterprise-wide e-Learning software platform solution must address numerous functions -- skills assessment, instructional design, internal authoring, commercial course acquisition, testing, certification, tracking, reporting, e-commerce, database management, web hosting. There currently exist only partial point solutions addressing segments of the e-Learning cycle. There is no single product that allows the midsize enterprise to deploy e-Learning without expensive customization and license fees.

The next generation e-Learning platform must also enable the midsize enterprise to connect their entire and diverse corporate community (employees, suppliers, resellers, consumers, etc.) in a web of collaborative online learning, while delivering custom learning tools directly to the individual desktop. It must be able to decentralize and distribute e-Learning to multiple centers to truly accommodate an organization's global structure, while retaining central control for measurement and certification. The new e-Learning platform must enable connected e-Learning (or "C-Learning").

C-Learning connects a company's learning objectives for its employees, resellers, suppliers, consumers with corporate goals via collaborative and measurable e-Learning.

C-Learning solutions integrate advanced skills management software with collaborative learning centers to give the enterprise the tools to assess and address skills gaps inside their organizations. Once needs are recognized, enterprise-wide distributed C-Learning centers connect the entire range of corporate relationships and deliver powerful collaborative tools and training courseware directly to an individual's desktop.

C-Learning links all members of an enterprise's extended family together - Suppliers, Vendors, Employees, Sales force, Resellers, Corporate Customers and Consumers - thereby accelerating learning throughout a whole organization and out to the field and customer. C-Learning enables companies to build global B2B training networks. C-Learning provides a competitive edge for midsize enterprises with faster time-to-market, better supply chain communication and a well-trained workforce.

Technologically, C-Learning depends upon a new architecture that permits multiple Learning Centers to share a single, centralized server so that individual members of the corporate community can have affordable and secure access to their own customized e- learning platform. Although each customized Learning Center is independent, they would all be integrated into a single, centralized database for management, tracking, reporting and security. With C-Learning, a corporation can create training programs that map directly onto an organization's hierarchical structure, right down to the division, department and individual. A C-Learning model allows all authorized groups in an enterprise to access powerful training tools directly and easily.

The midsize enterprise needs e-Learning to compress the learning cycle throughout its corporate community. The enterprise network, with intranets and virtual private networks, supports an ever-widening world of relationships. Each relationship needs to be connected to the company's central knowledge base; each one needs training to be able to meet corporate goals. C-Learning generates a competitive edge by connecting a corporation's worldwide community together through collaborative, secure, and measurable learning so that knowledge moves more rapidly through the entire enterprise.

As the following chart shows, C-Learning connects business objectives to learning outcomes, maximizing ROI and productivity from new e-Learning initiatives:

Corporate Community	C-Learning Applications
Employees	HR, training, policies and procedures, IT and KM training
Trainers	Courseware creation, localization, customization, delivery
Suppliers	Product training, production and manufacturing training
Resellers	Product training, corporate policies and procedures
Corporate Customers	Product training, policies and procedures
Consumers	Product training

• Manage knowledge assets
• Connect training objectives with corporate goals
• Bridge the skills gap
• Reach geographically dispersed employees, sales force, and customers more quickly and at greater cost savings
• Remotely manage content from one location
• Load and update without any programming or extra overhead
• Monitor and assess training and testing content, student skill/competency level, and instructor performance
• Accumulate a skills-set and project management database
• Easily author courseware with fully integrated Microsoft Office 2000
• Offer on-demand training throughout organizations regardless of geography or time
• Personalize an individual's learning experience

The Skills Gap Problem	Employees and resellers cannot get trained fast enough on a company's new products, programs, and strategies to be competitive enough in today's knowledge-based economy.
Effect of Skills Gap	Poorly trained employees and partners mean lost competitive edge and inability to connect corporate strategy with results.
Solution	C-Learning dramatically compresses time to train employees on skills required to do jobs and support sales of company's products and services.

Connected Learning	links enterprise's suppliers, employees, resellers, customers
Collaboration	provides interactive and dynamic learning from a single product
Community	offers forums and discussions for employees, users and suppliers
Centralized Controls	supplies a centralized database for distributed, decentralized learning centers
Corporate Objectives	connects competencies to corporate objectives
Competitive Advantage	accelerates acquisition of essential knowledge to field
Certification	accesses, measures, and certifies competency levels
Content	creates content-sensitive courses quickly with Microsoft Office
Customers	provides product training for corporate customers
Consumers	delivers brand education for consumers supporting corporate customers

• Single, integrated e-Learning product
• Internet and/or intranet enabled
• Centralized controls and administration
• High scalability
• Multiple stand-alone, but linked e-Learning platforms
• Both live and asynchronous collaboration
• Skills gap analysis and skills
• Testing
• Course import for standards-based courses
• Reporting
• Rapid course creation and delivery
• E-commerce enabled
• Registration & course catalogues
• Customer configurable
• Secure and scalable
• Common tools for authoring (e.g., Microsoft Office 2000)
• Community layer connecting all learning center segments together
• Connected to legacy ERP system
• Affordability

E-Learning companies in the corporate space are targeting Fortune 1000 companies with an expensive combination of technologies and services to create customized corporate universities. No company is focusing its product development efforts on the unique learning requirements of the midsize enterprise. No company except IntraLearn.

IntraLearn products are technically unique among e-Learning offerings in that they integrate the features of much more costly solutions into a single, installable software application for the midsize enterprise. IntraLearn e-360 features learning management, skills analysis, e-commerce, registration, wizard-based WYSIWYG content and course creation, assessments, profiles, interactivity, collaboration, integrated reporting, and the ability to import either IMS or AICC-compliant third party courseware- all in one easy-to-use browser-accessible package. The IntraLearn e-360 brings online learning creation and delivery even closer to the desktop with Windows 2000 certification, a sophisticated skill-based management front-end, and the integration of Office 2000 to make course creation possible for all authorized members of an enterprise.

IntraLearn has created a solution, combining collaboration, distributed learning centers, and skills-based management in a single configurable and affordable package, that truly serves the complete e-Learning needs of the midsize enterprise. Only IntraLearn enables connected e-Learning.