The rSmart Group announces the rSmart Sakai CLE 2.4.1
PHOENIX, AZ. (September 27, 2007) -- The rSmart Group is pleased to announce availability of the rSmart Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) 2.4.1. Based on Sakai 2.4.x community code, the rSmart Sakai distribution includes newly certified platform support, up-to-date context sensitive help, a select set of new features and over 60 fixes or functional enhancements.
“We’re greatly encouraged by the increasing maturity of the Sakai product, the rapid pace of distributed innovation, and the steady growth of the Sakai community around the world,” noted Hannah Reeves, rSmart’s CLE product manager. “It’s exciting to see a relatively new open source software application compete successfully with commercial applications that have been in the market for over a decade, and we’re proud to be supporting this shift toward open innovation in the software world.”
In a speech delivered at Gartner’s recent Open Source Summit, Mark Driver, Gartner research VP declared, “Open source is going to come into your network whether you like it or not. It has become completely impractical to avoid the subject at all.” rSmart’s president Chris Coppola comments, “We believe participation in open source communities makes sense. It’s the most effective way for universities to leverage investment in IT while taking advantage of the innovation afforded by open architecture in products such as Kuali and Sakai and enjoying freedom from proprietary licenses. It’s gratifying to see that industry analysts such as Gartner are finally beginning to acknowledge the inevitability of open source software adoption.”
As the leading provider of support and services for open source applications in education, rSmart believes in the promise of open source to bring innovation to education and is committed to making this a reality. rSmart backs up this commitment by making its CLE distribution freely available from its corporate website under the terms of an OSI-approved open source license. The rSmart Sakai CLE enables educational institutions to reap the benefits of open source software with the ease and predictability of commercially produced applications.
About The rSmart Group:
The rSmart Group is the leading open source application software company serving the education market. rSmart packages, certifies, deploys, and supports a suite of enterprise financial and collaboration and learning applications for colleges, universities, and institutions serving grades K–12. As an active member of open source projects like Kuali and Sakai, rSmart is able to provide its clients with software applications specifically designed to meet the unique needs of educational institutions. This collaborative approach allows rSmart to offer open source applications that break the dependence of educational institutions on traditional proprietary software vendors. Please visit www.rsmart.com for more information.
About Sakai:
The Sakai Project is a landmark venture to create a comprehensive open-source course management, collaboration and online research environment for the education community. Started in 2004 by a collaboration between the University of Michigan, Indiana University, Stanford and MIT, the project is now run by the Sakai Foundation and includes over 100 members representing universities, colleges and institutions of learning around the world. For more information visit www.sakaiproject.org.
