One of the things that has changed the content side of the education business is the opportunity for teachers to download material from anywhere in the world. So when we look at the strategic threat posed by free resources to UK publishers and software developers we need to also look outside the UK.

While there are an ever-increasing number of these sites, one of the more interesting is US-based Curriki. While still in its infancy, it’s run by serious educators like Dr Bobbi Kurshan (Executive Director) and we are led to believe it is the brainchild of Scott McNealy, Chairman of Sun Microsystems. Kurshan is ex Pearson, McGraw Hill, Britannica and currently sits on the board of WorldSage and Interschola.

Curriki would like to become the ‘global education and learning community equivalent of Wikipedia’. It’s a large task and one that for the foreseeable future will be US-focused, however there are already some UK teachers and learners involved. Carving out a sustainable niche will be a major achievement and we wonder whether this is phase three in Sun’s education strategy. First, push open source software like Star/Open Office, second build partnerships with companies like Google (who launched their own Google Apps for Education mid-year) and third seed-fund content portals like Curriki. We will let you know how Curriki develops.

• www.curriki.org
• www.interschola.com
• www.sun.com
• www.worldsage.com