PHOENIX, Ariz., May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- The rSmart Group, the leading open source application software company serving higher education, today announced it is teaming with IBM in support of the Sakai Project. The Sakai Project is a community source software development effort involving over 70 institutions. The Sakai Project is building and releasing online course management, collaboration and research team support software based on open source standards and licenses. Select companies like rSmart and IBM have been invited to join the Sakai Project as Sakai Commercial Affiliates (SCA) to provide world-class development and customer support for Sakai software.

Chris Coppola, Vice President of Community Development for The rSmart Group says, "The relationship between The rSmart Group and IBM builds on our commitment and strengthens our ability to deliver trusted open source solutions to the education marketplace." Coppola adds, "We are excited that IBM has joined the Sakai project and look forward to accelerating the pace of development and adoption and distribution of Sakai software, an important contribution to higher education."

Patrick Carey, IBM Business Consulting Services' higher education leader states, "IBM believes that by combining our talents and resources with rSmart, paired with our mutual and passionate interest in higher education, we can create the critical synergies needed for the success of the Sakai project as well as future open source projects."

"IBM's commitment to open source solutions and a services oriented architecture creates a synergy that benefits both companies," says Ray Barker, CEO of The rSmart Group. Barker adds, "The rSmart group is a leader in providing subscription based application support for education institutions that run Sakai and OSPI, an open source ePortfolio application, as well as Kuali, an open source financial system. IBM's products and services allow these institutions to control and customize product design, lower costs, and more efficiently deliver mission critical enterprise IT systems. We intend to fully leverage this unique combination of capabilities to bring valuable open source solutions to the market."

About The rSmart Group

The rSmart Group is the leading open source application software company serving the higher education market. rSmart packages, certifies, deploys, and supports a suite of enterprise financial and collaborative learning applications for colleges and universities. As an active member of open source projects like OSPI, Kuali, and Sakai, rSmart is able to provide its clients with software applications specifically designed to meet the unique needs of institutions of higher education. This collaborative approach allows rSmart to offer colleges and universities open source applications that break their dependence on traditional proprietary software vendors.

Please visit http://www.rsmart.com/ for more information. About IBM

IBM, the world's largest consulting, services and information technology company, helps improve education throughout the world. For more than 80 years, IBM people and solutions have been helping schools and institutions of higher education innovate for greater achievement, productivity and efficiency. IBM draws on its world-class portfolio of services, software and hardware solutions to help clients realize the full potential of their technology investments. For information about IBM's solutions and experience in education, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/industries/education. For more on IBM's support of the open source movement, please visit: http://www-/ 130.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource. For information on partnering with IBM, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld.

About Sakai

The Sakai Project, a landmark venture to create open-source course management, collaboration and online research support tools for the higher education community, involves more than 70 universities, colleges and institutions of learning around the world. The project, begun through with a collaboration involving the University of Michigan, Indiana University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the Open Knowledge Initiative and the uPortal Project, and funded by the Mellon and Hewlett Foundations, has released the 1.0 and 1.5 versions of its software and plans to release its innovative 2.0 version this summer.

Press Contact Kari Clark, Dir. of Marketing Communications The rSmart Group (602) 840-7300 x100 kari.clark@rsmart.com

CONTACT: Kari Clark, Dir. of Marketing Communications of The rSmart
Group, +1-602-840-7300, ext. 100, kari.clark@rsmart.com

Web site: http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld
http://www.ibm.com/industries/education
http://www-130.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource
http://www.rsmart.com/

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