BBBB Blackboard (MM)

Academic institutions around the nation are being tasked with providing greater services, efficiencies and conveniences for their campus populations. Towards this end, many are turning to Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB), a leading provider of technology to the education industry, for a complete solution. Blackboard announced today that 14 campuses from across the United States have recently joined the Blackboard(R) community, licensing software and hardware products from the Blackboard Commerce Suite. The Blackboard Commerce Suite includes three enterprise software applications that support cashless transactions on-campus, off-campus and online, linked to university ID cards. Campuses which have recently licensed software solutions from the Blackboard Commerce Suite include Merrimack College, High Point University, College of Notre Dame of Maryland, Davidson County Community College, Framingham State College, Randolph Macon Women's College, Guilford College, Howard Hughes Medical Center, Cuyahoga Community College District, Dowling College, Arcadia University, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, Montclair State University and Southwestern University of Georgetown. All of these new clients are implementing The Blackboard Transaction System(TM), the heart of the Blackboard Commerce Suite, which manages the administration, processing, and reporting functions for a variety of campus services. The Blackboard Transaction System is used by hundreds of colleges to securely process millions of transactions involving payments, data transfer, physical access control and activity authentication, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. "Davidson County Community College, which is 50 years young, is excited to implement the Blackboard Transaction System(TM) as the school's first one-card system connecting 16,000 students across 11 campus buildings and two satellite education centers," said Rusty Hunt, Director of Financial Services at Davidson County Community College. "We look forward to the enhanced services we will be able to offer our community with this new system, including greater security and the ability for students and faculty to access vending and activity options with their college ID cards." High Point University, a private liberal arts college in North Carolina, initially considered Blackboard technology as a vending services solution for students, but quickly recognized the wide range of additional benefits their campus community would realize by implementing the complete Blackboard Commerce Suite. "We are really excited about developing and fostering relationships with the business community on and off campus, through the BbOne(TM) Program," said Wellington DeSouza, Director of Information Technology at High Point University. "Not only will this new program help generate revenue for our campus and local businesses, but it provides an excellent benefit to students and faculty, who can now use their ID cards to make purchases at a host of stores throughout the community." "Blackboard's clients are the ones really driving the innovation of campus commerce and we are pleased and privileged to partner with them on this journey," said Michael Chasen, president and CEO of Blackboard. "It's particularly exciting to see how far the Blackboard Commerce System has evolved in recent times and we look forward to continuing down this path with the newest members of the Blackboard community." About Blackboard Inc. Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB) is a leading provider of enterprise software applications and related services to the education industry. Founded in 1997, Blackboard enables educational innovations everywhere by connecting people and technology. Millions of people use Blackboard everyday at academic institutions around the globe, including colleges, universities, K-12 schools and other education providers, as well as textbook publishers and student-focused merchants that serve education providers and their students. Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Blackboard is the parent company and owner of WebCT, and develops and maintains software and services for all Blackboard and WebCT products. Blackboard Educate. Innovate. Everywhere.(TM) Any statements in this press release about future expectations, plans and prospects for Blackboard and other statements containing the words "believes," "anticipates," "plans," "expects," "will," and similar expressions, constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including the factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of our Annual Report on Form 10-Q filed on August 9, 2006 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of August 23, 2006. The Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause the Company's views to change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to August 23, 2006.