City & Guilds acquire Kineo - a meeting of minds (2+2=5)

City & Guilds, the UK’s premier brand in vocational education, have bought Kineo, the UKs premier brand for LMS and content. First, I have to say that I know both sides well. I’m on the Council of City & Guilds, and I know the guys at Kineo very well, as I hired them all. They were my management team at Epic and left at around the time I left Epic, when it was sold. They’re smart people who had a smart idea (rapid e-learning and commercialise Moodle). It's great to see two UK organisations get serious about building something bigger in the vocational market.

What does it mean?

This is a huge boost for vocational learning in the UK, both in organisations and colleges, as C&G now have a smart technology platform and production house for deliverables straight to employers, including technology, consultancy and content. It has also given C&G a much larger international profile and reach for their qualifications and future deliverables. This is all about moving towards real deliverables over and above accreditation. This is a 2+2=5 deal.

Meeting of minds

This is also a meeting of minds as they’ve been working together for a while on real projects. City & Guilds have Kirstie Donnelly and a good technical team that are keen to innovate. They’re already using e-volve and e-logbooks as well as creating tablet content and m-learning apps. Kineo are used to responsive deign across all platforms and can bring content to life. Totara has proved itself as a LMS with teeth (I assume that City & Guilds have also acquired Kineo’s minority share of Totara). For existing customers it should be business as usual.

Conclusion

What’s important here is that C&G don’t crush the entrepreneurial spirit of Kineo and that they embrace the technology and go on to turn C&G into the organisation it could be. So well done Chris Jones, Kirstie Donnelly and the team at C&G and well done to Steve Rayson and his team at Kineo.

See press release here.