CBT to sell its training courses on the Internet

CBT Group, the Dublin-based training software manufacturer, has said it plans to sell its educational software over the Internet to tap growing public demand for long-distance courses.

The company produces and rents interactive educational software to companies which need to train employees using computer programmes. It is now to set up two Internet sites, one to market software and a second to allow students communicate with teachers and other students.

"The information technology market is growing at twice the rate of the rest of the education sector," said CBT chairman, Mr Bill McCabe. "We want to grow our current base of 2,000 corporate customers but we also want to attract individual customers over the Internet."

Mr McCabe said the company has seen growth of around 50 per cent in recent years but for the next few years expects to grow at the same speed as the market, or slightly more. "Earnings growth will be just a shade higher than revenue," he said. CBT's sales are to grow by about 25 per cent this year. The company's share price finished up 3 per cent, at $16.687 on the Nasdaq yesterday.

Shareholders at a company meeting in Dublin voted to acquire the business-skills training company, Knowledge Well, for £52 million in stock. Mr Bill McCabe, the CBT chairman, is a major shareholder in Knowledge Well.

An alliance between IBM and Knowledge Well was announced yesterday and the Texas-based company is to provide 30,000 IBM employees with direct access to its educational software.

IBM will feature Knowledge Well on its Solution Developer Program web site providing the 30,000 developer members of the programme with fast, direct access to Knowledge Well's university-validated business and management curricula. In return, Knowledge Well will provide the developers with preferred pricing. The courses will be made available to IBM's developers via CBTNow, CBT Systems e-commerce engine.