BBBB Blackboard (MM)

WASHINGTON, May 11, 2011 /CNW/ -- New Facility Responds to Rising Demand for In-Region Hosting Services Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) today announced plans to open a new data center in Canada this summer, responding to growing interest from Canadian institutions for an in-region facility to host and manage their learning environments. The new data center will be located in Calgary, Alberta, and will be the company's seventh production facility. It joins Blackboard's existing hosting facilities in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia. Blackboard Managed Hosting currently supports about 8.5 million active users and approximately 950 education, corporate and government clients worldwide. Overall, the number of clients hosted by Blackboard has grown by over 20 percent in the last two years. As the management of learning environments becomes more complex and the need for more reliable uptime becomes more important, institutions have increasingly leveraged Blackboard's hosting capabilities. In doing so, they're achieving greater uptime and a partner with the technical expertise to manage installations, upgrades, and day-to-day system maintenance, enabling their institutional IT staff to spend more time working to improve overall systems to better support learning programs. With guaranteed uptime rates of up to 99.9 percent, Blackboard provides a reliable, secure and high performance infrastructure that supports student and institutional success. Blackboard's data centers typically average over 150 million Internet hits a day during peak times, and are staffed around the clock to guard against threats to physical and data security, natural disasters, and network outages of all types, while also providing a highly reliable and secure hosting environment. "Opening a data center in Canada underscores our commitment to providing the best mix of technology and services to institutions in Canada," said Harry Choi, vice president of Blackboard Managed Hosting. "We've seen that clients who rely on our deep experience and technical expertise spend less time worrying about system management and can devote more of their attention to improving and growing programs, so we're excited to present a stronger set of capabilities to Canadian institutions." For more information about Blackboard Managed Hosting, please visit http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Learn/Services/Managed-Hosting.aspx About Blackboard Inc. Blackboard Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBB) is a global leader in enterprise technology and innovative solutions that improve the experience of millions of students and learners around the world every day. Blackboard's solutions allow thousands of higher education, K-12, professional, corporate, and government organizations to extend teaching and learning online, facilitate campus commerce and security, and communicate more effectively with their communities. Founded in 1997, Blackboard is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. 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 Form 10-Q filed on May 9, 2011 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of May 11, 2011. 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 May 11, 2011. Matthew Maurer, Blackboard Inc., +1-202-463-4860, ext. 2637, matthew.maurer@blackboard.com Web Site: http://www.blackboard.com

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