Espresso Education have announced the acquisition of Netmedia for an undisclosed amount. The new structure will have Espresso Broadband as the overall holding company with three separate divisions.

The aim of the new venture is to provide a more complete solution for schools including media-rich content along with web-based educational platform services. One of the key strengths will be the larger company’s ability to deliver the government’s personalised learning agenda due to come into force by 2008. During the press conference the management of both companies were at pains to stress that the primary motivation for the deal was the similarity in management outlook, a set of shared values and the complementary nature of the businesses.

Schools will be able to buy products from both companies independently with Netmedia’s open system strategy still using content from other companies ranging from Caspian Learning and Cisco to Riverdeep, SAM Learning and Spark Island. The first joint venture product from the companies will be a video and digital asset library for Key Stage 3 called Open Espresso.

Netmedia’s major partnership with Australian company myinternet is unaffected by the new arrangements and may even give Espresso the opportunity to expand into the Australian education market.

Given the uncertainty surrounding many companies in the UK educational software market, this move is the first of several deals we expect to see over the next year.

• www.espresso.co.uk

• www.netmedia-ed.co.uk

• www.myinternet.com.au