The Blackboard Commerce Suite provides institutions large and small the technology to effectively meet the challenges of managing payments, facility access control, and security management. Blackboard’s technology enables colleges to automate transaction processing to reduce errors, eliminate operational redundancies and control costs.

“As a dynamic urban two-year college, our students, faculty, and staff have come to expect services that anticipate and deliver to meet the rapidly changing needs of our community,” said Gary Westerland, Director of Auxiliary Services at Minneapolis Community and Technical College. “The Blackboard solution provides our institution with tools to meet these expectations and options for growth as these needs evolve. Our partnership with Blackboard positions us well to serve our population well into the future.”

Many colleges and universities use the complete Blackboard Commerce Suite for a wide range of campus service needs including providing students and faculty with secure access to buildings and residence halls, video surveillance, cashless payment on- and off-campus, access to laundry services, parking and copy services, as well as self-service online account management. 

“Colleges and universities are motivated to provide a wide range of cutting edge campus services,” said Russ Carlson, President of Blackboard Commerce. “We are pleased to work with schools to ensure secure campus facilities and establish an on- and off-campus payment processing infrastructure so that they can better serve their campus constituents.”

For more information about Blackboard Commerce, please visit http://www.blackboard.com/commerce. 

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 every day 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. For more information, please visit http://www.blackboard.com.

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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-K filed on February 20, 2008 with the SEC. In addition, the forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of April 7, 2008. 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 April 7, 2008.