Kevin Oakes on the Rise and Fall of the LMS

Sitting in a fun presentation by Kevin Oakes at DevLearn on the Rise and Fall of the LMS. He pointed back to entry of various players in the market and particularly the enterprise vendors as opposed to pure-play vendors from articles five years ago. See:

• “Supplier Savvy: Will Enterprise Software Companies Take Over E-Learning?”
• “Enterprise Software Redux,”

In terms of "The Fall" his main point was that LMS will lose out to broader spectrum solutions - particularly Talent Management / Human Capital Management. Part of the rationale for this argument is that the LMS market is not ever going to be "huge" - meaning the market leaders are $100M companies and they likely can't grow much beyond that. So, how can you get big? You go broader.

And when you go look at the LMS providers, they don't call themselves an LMS anymore:

• •SumTotal is a global provider of talent and learning management solutions.
• •Saba is the premier global provider of strategic human capital management (HCM) software and services.
• •Plateau is a leading provider of talent management software, content and services designed to increase workforce productivity and drive business success.
• •Learn.com is the worldwide leader in on-demand workforce development and productivity.
• •GeoLearning is the leading provider of Managed Learning Services and on-demand learning and performance technology.
• •KnowledgePlanet is a leading provider of performance-based learning solutions and services that drive business alignment, operational efficiencies and competitive advantage through workforce and talent development.

These descriptions clearly indicate they are going after the talent management marketplace.

His bottom line ...

• LMS is falling
• HR software and LMS are moving towards becoming talent management.
  

Oh, and we need to watch out for losing software aimed at our needs.