Sun reinforces its commitment to eliminate the 'Digital Divide' - sponsors Blackboard Summit in Dubai

The summit attracted more than 200 participants eager to learn about innovations in e-learning, from eight countries across the Gulf and Middle East.

"Sun constantly seeks to help customers build the Digital Campus, a unified campus network in which individuals can interact and collaborate in a seamless, secure, personalised environment for learning," said Tarek Ayass, regional manager - education and research, Sun Microsystems Middle East and North Africa. "Sun's ten year partnership with Blackboard creates a win-win opportunity for educational institutions to power online teaching and learning environments. Sun systems—infrastructure software, servers, and storage provide the foundation needed to ensure a highly secure, seamlessly scalable, and highly available Blackboard installation."

Ayass added:

"The Sun-Blackboard solution provides everything needed to establish an organisations' presence on the Internet with ready-to-run bundles for course management, Web hosting, and Internet caching. In partnership with Blackboard, Sun works hard to expand opportunities and to break down barriers to provide easy access to technology."

Blackboard's on-line learning and e-Commerce resources are unparalleled in the education industry. As more campuses come to rely on course management software and networked transaction systems, Blackboard continues to lead the way with products and services that meet the evolving needs of today's students, faculty, staff and administrators.

Blackboard provides numerous institutions worldwide with the right tools to tackle today's learning challenges. With more than 3,600 client institutions across 60 countries worldwide, Blackboard's long history of innovation and investment has resulted in a base of experience and expertise to help the education industry take the next steps. Blackboard sits at the center of what education is all about- enabling effective educational interactions.

Blackboard is a leading provider of enterprise software and services solutions that help enable dramatic improvements in student achievement in higher education. This vision creates opportunities for institutions to improve student engagement and student life, to enhance institutional accountability, to respond to demands of a global economy, and to strengthen the management of institutional cost and funding strategies.