OutStart Announces TrainingEdge.com

OutStart, the leading provider of eKnowledge software solutions, today announced OutStart TrainingEdge.com. The new product is a complete, on-demand SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) eLearning 2.0 platform that integrates the best of traditional LMS and LCMS technology, with the power of Web 2.0, including communities, Wikis, private messaging, expertise exchanges and expert events to enable next generation collaborative learning. Now, learners can share experiences and knowledge with each other, with experts and among the training organization. Since the emergence of Web 2.0, companies have been challenged with ways in which to use the collaboration and communication platforms for business. OutStart’s new offering is the only one of its kind that can harness Web 2.0 and traditional learning functionality for powerful training applications within one easy-to-manage solution. “There’s a clear need for solutions like this in the market,” said Bryan Chapman, chief learning strategist, Chapman Alliance. “Most other learning technology providers are treating support for informal or social learning as an afterthought, creating add-on modules available for separate purchase to extend their core technology. What I admire most about OutStart TrainingEdge.com is that structured learning and informal learning are central to the platform out of the box; making it affordable for many different types of organizations both large and small. This solution will be very attractive to learning professionals that are now planning their informal learning strategy.” “We listened to workforce development and training groups from hundreds of companies that told us they need a fast-time-to-value, low annual cost-of-ownership solution that addresses their learning requirements without a large staff or extensive IT resources,” said Massood Zarrabian, president and CEO, OutStart. “We witnessed ways in which they were challenged to build learning content coupled with an eagerness and confusion over ways to incorporate Web 2.0 applications into the mix. With that in mind, we designed OutStart TrainingEdge.com to enable a one-stop learning experience that brings together the best of traditional and Web 2.0 functionality into a single, integrated solution.” The OutStart TrainingEdge.com is a complete training solution that: * Quickly build and delivers highly effective learning. It is a one-stop learning hub with all of the functionality to build content, administer learning and support informal student-to-student and student-to-expert exchanges. * Minimizes learning content development, maintenance and management time and relieves the burden on training teams for collaborative content development, learning administration and on-going learner support. * Consistently increases informal knowledge sharing among learners with a collaborative environment of communities, wikis, expertise exchange, expert events and private messaging that promotes and manages real-time interactions among learners, their peers, instructors and subject matter experts. * Offers a budget-friendly, fixed-cost, rapid implementation and on-going support that eliminates hardware, software, maintenance and upgrade fees combined with easy administration and end-user tools to minimize staff training and end-user support. * Achieves fast time-to-value. It is easily configured with business-oriented tools to eliminate costly customization. The result is fast ROI without lengthy services engagement or time-consuming customization. OutStartTrainingEdge.com Components: * An On-demand (Software-as-a-Service) offering to relieve the burden of maintaining hardware, software, and upgrades * An industry-leading LCMS to build, manage and deploy content * An award-winning LMS that is highly configurable to avoid costly and time-consuming customization. * Extensive Web 2.0 functionality, including communities, wikis, expertise exchanges, expert events, and private messaging. * A configurable offering that can be deployed in less than 5 days. “OutStart TrainingEdge.com is a solution that takes away one of the biggest challenges we face with online learning, the ability to effortlessly access experts on the fly and have learners questions answered quickly,” said Tara Schulz, eLearning department manager, Next Gen Healthcare Information Systems, Inc. “The low cost of ownership minus the challenges sometimes associated with software make it a perfect fit for our training needs.” Pricing and Availability OutStart TrainingEdge.com is available immediately as an on-demand, SaaS offering with individual deployments ready to go in under 5 days.. Pricing is on a per-user/annual basis. About OutStart OutStart software powers formal and on-demand knowledge sharing and learning solutions that enable knowledge workers – such as sales and marketing professionals, partners and customers – to perform their roles far more efficiently and effectively. Autodesk, British Telecom, Caremark, Kronos, Motorola, Next Gen Healthcare Information Systems, Steelcase, TravelCLICK, the U.S. Navy, Verizon Wireless and others rely on OutStart to increase individual and organizational performance, improve knowledge transfer and lower operating costs. Located in Boston, Mass., OutStart has offices throughout the U.S. and Europe and can be found on the web at www.outstart.com.