History and facts Updated November 2012
History – the first version
History
The company was originally founded under the name of “it: solutions” in the spring of 1999 by Helge Hannisdal, Ivar Sund, Bent Audun Hesvik, Vegard Sivertsen and Jan Åge Skaatun.
Many of them were about to complete their studies and wanted to start their own business. Helge, Ivar, Bent and Vegard was the employees of the company from the beginning. After a few months Vegard sold, and in came Erik Aadland.
Today the majority of the company is still owned by the founders and other employees of the company
History
Initially, the business plan for “it: solutions” was consulting and Web services. Their largest customer was long one of the teachers from the (the place Helge, Ivar, Bent and John Arthur studied), who had an part time AutoCAD development project.
John Arthur Berg had no formal engagement in the company in the first period, but he and Helge had written a master assignment together during their studies at University of Bergen. It was called “Virtual Classroom" as they finished it in the spring of 1999. The idea was that, despite much new IT infrastructure at the college, most personal computers still was used as advanced typewriters. They wrote a assignment and developed a prototype that showed how a network-based software could streamline the education and communication. University College did eventually contacted “it: solutions” in order to ask them to further develop the prototype so that it could be used in a project at University College. This was the start of "itslearning".
Company growing…
2008: itslearning aquires Netmedia Education(UK) Netmedia was distributing Editure as their Learning Platform Editure customers asked to migrate to it’s learning Netmedia continues to support their legacy software(My Suite, Lynchpin, My First Place) 2010: itslearning aquires InfoStance(France) Infostance main product is ”ScolaStance” Based in Mulhouse/Paris in France
Timeline – some milestones
Opens up branch office in London
Acquires Netmedia
Company founded
Acquires Infostances
2009 1999
2005
2008
2010
Arne Bergby New CEO Opens up branch office in Germany and in Sweden
Opens up branch office in USA and in France
Facts - about the company
• 210 employees (Nov 2012) • Revenues: 154MNOK (2011) • Head Office in Bergen, Norway • Subsidiaries in: - UK - Birmingham/London - US - Boston - France - Paris/Mulhouse - Sweden - Malmø - Germany - Berlin • Partners in - Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Mexico, Turkey and Ecuador
Facts – Global Operations
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Hosting centre for itslearning is located in Oslo, USIT (University Centre of Technology)
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Approximately 180 servers
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Approximately 1 750 000 active users on itslearning last 12 months (Nov 2012) Norway United Kingdom USA Netherlands Denmark Sweden France Germany Italy Spain
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Finland Mexico Turkey Ecuador
Record of 58 552 users simultaneously online (Nov. 2012)
What we deliver
Our product is a learning platform (often called LP or LMS) Wikipedia definition: A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, and reporting of training programs, classroom and online events, e-learning programs, and training content.(Ellis 2009) Our solution is SaaS (software as a service) Wikipedia definition: Software as a service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. SaaS software vendors may host the application on their own web servers or upload the application to the consumer device, disabling it after use or after the on-demand contract expires. The on-demand function may be handled internally to share licenses within a firm or by a third-party application service provider (ASP) sharing licenses between firms