Lotus Development Corp is to buy Macromedia Inc’s Pathware training software business in a deal that will earn Macromedia up to $30m over the next three years. Pathware provides learning management for enterprises. As well as helping administrators plan curricula for training courses, it tracks students’ progress through those courses. It’s a useful system, especially for companies like Boeing where the provision of certain training to employees is required by law. But Macromedia had been pushing the software out through a resource-intensive direct sales force. As the rest of the company’s products took off in the mass market, Pathware was starting to look more and more out of place.
Now it will form part of Lotus’ Distributed Learning Business Group, which also develops and markets Lotus LearningSpace. The rival products are to be merged. Nor has Macromedia given up the computer-based training market as a channel for its authoring software. As a condition of the sale, Lotus will resell Macromedia’s content creation tools, including Authorware, Director, Attain Objects for Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash. It will also license Shockwave, Flash and Authorware. Lotus says it wants to be the top supplier of computer-based training. The deal should close in 30 days, and the company hopes to have a branded edition of Pathware available in September.
