Through major acquisitions and in-house development, computer giants have entered the e-learning market, giving rise to healthy competition among vendors. The IT majors aim to provide enterprise level e-learning infrastructure products - a move that is likely to find favor with customers since these products can easily be integrated with their systems and also provide one-stop solutions. Existing pure-play e-learning vendors are investing more money in their marketing and product development efforts to increase awareness of their brand names and thus, promote sales.

This research analyzes the increasing competition in the e-learning market and identifies new sales opportunities for market vendors in evolving verticals such as healthcare, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, industrial, education, government, and other regulated market segments. The detailed analyses of market drivers, restraints, and technology trends provide inputs for vendors to streamline their business development strategies.

Infrastructure Vendors and Content Providers Benefit from Increasing Awareness of e-Learning

Traditional teaching methods are still favored in verticals such as education where personal interaction is of primary importance and is considered to provide value for money. "However, in corporate sectors such as banking, finance, and insurance, e-learning is gradually upstaging conventional training methods," says the analyst. "This is due to realization of the immense benefits in terms of cost savings and employee productivity."

Virtual classrooms are expected to grow significantly due to their ease of use and increase in awareness about the benefits of learning management systems (LMS) and learning content management systems (LCMS). With this competitive advantage over conventional training institutions, e-learning systems are creating more demand for content providers. Attractive offerings such as simulation-based, games-based and mobile learning are also expected to drive the future demand for e-learning.

Hosted e-Learning Gaining Popularity among Cash-strapped Corporates

Premises-based e-learning systems and their content are quite high priced with LMS/LCMS and their implementation making up the bulk of the expenditure. Huge capital investments in e-learning content development and system installation often deter enterprises with limited corporate budgets in a slowly recovering economy. This factor indirectly increases the popularity of cost-effective hosted e-learning.

Hosted e-learning provides impressive cost savings due to the economies of scale achieved by hosted vendors. In addition, buyers only need to pay for what they buy. Thus, hosted solutions are fast turning into an appealing option to buyers as they can recognize their return on investment.