Bersin & Associates Recognizes Brainshark as Key Player in Fastest-Growing Segment of eLearning Market.

WALTHAM, Mass. -- Need For Time-Critical Learning Delivery Fueling 80 Percent Compound Annual Growth Rate In Rapid eLearning Segment, Report Highlights Brainshark and Case Studies from Factiva, Thomson Financial, and Houghton Mifflin 

Brainshark, the leader in on-demand rich-media communications solutions, today announced its recognition in Bersin & Associates' newly released report, Rapid eLearning: What Works 2005. The report cited Brainshark's end-to-end ease of use in creating, managing, and tracking learning modules and communications to quickly and effectively deliver on-demand learning courses.

With today's training and HR Managers citing that 72 percent of their company's training needs are time-critical, according to the Bersin study, Brainshark is focused on providing technology that helps organizations keep up with the continuous demand for information-based training. Brainshark is a clear leader in the Rapid eLearning technology market, working with companies such as Houghton Mifflin - who used Brainshark's Rapid eLearning module to revamp and streamline the format of its national sales training initiative, and Factiva - a Dow Jones and Reuters Company who delivers 90 percent of its training via Rapid eLearning and has trained over 200 of its employees to use Brainshark to create and deliver learning content. Case studies with Brainshark customers Houghton Mifflin, Factiva, and Thomson Financial are included in the report.

"We believe that Brainshark's strength lies in its end-to-end simplicity," said Josh Bersin, president of Bersin & Associates, a research and advisory firm focused on enterprise learning. "Brainshark's technology makes it possible for even the most novice user to quickly create, deploy and manage learning programs. Its flexibility also makes this communications solution equally well suited for delivering programs to internal audiences - such as company employees - as well as to external audiences such as channel partners and customers."

Bersin's report highlights the drivers behind rapid e-learning: the need to efficiently and economically address time-critical training challenges and the demand for flexible and easy-to-use tools for subject matter experts (SMEs), those individuals who possess critical knowledge related to the training topic and who typically are not training professionals. In contrast to traditional eLearning development processes that require specialized design skills and may involve months of development time, rapid e-learning tools are best used for training projects that must be completed and delivered in weeks.

Brainshark provides Subject Matter Experts with the ability to quickly and easily create voice-enriched content and courses from existing business materials and enhance content with interactive questions and polls, live Web pages, movie files, or spreadsheets and other documents for engaging and interactive content delivery. Additionally, the Brainshark Rapid Learning(TM) module provides a structured framework for learning professionals and line-of-business managers needing to deliver on demand learning and measure progress of a group towards a learning objective.

"We realize that delivering a flexible, easy-to-use solution is exactly what our customers are looking for when delivering their eLearning initiatives," said Joe Gustafson, CEO, Brainshark. "Our unique approach to developing and managing the delivery of content is specifically designed to address the needs of businesses that want to accelerate the flow of education and information to a particular audience, such as their employees, sales force, channel partners or customers."

To Learn More - Free Web Seminar

Brainshark will be hosting a free web seminar on May 25th from 2:00 - 3:00 pm EDT with analysts Josh Bersin and Karen O'Leonard of Bersin & Associates, who will present their latest research from their report, Rapid eLearning: What Works 2005. To register please visit: http://inter.viewcentral.com/reg/brainshark/bersin

To see and hear a brief overview of Brainshark Rapid Learning(TM), visit: http://www.brainshark.com/brainsharkinc/RLR?tx=pr0505

About Brainshark, Inc.

Brainshark, Inc. is the leading provider of rich-media solutions that enable companies to communicate business knowledge quickly and consistently. The Brainshark Communications Platform empowers the average business professional to create, manage, and share on-demand presentations that combine voice, text, graphics, and business documents. With its enterprise-class content management, security, and standards-based API's, Brainshark is the choice of global companies to communicate faster and more effectively with their employees, customers and partners. Companies are increasing revenue and reducing cost using Brainshark solutions for sales, marketing, training, and corporate communications. For more information, visit www.brainshark.com.